Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — HOME DEPARTMENT

George Blake

Mr. Wingfield Digby: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department on how many occasions, in the last two years, Blake was moved to make his escape more difficult.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Roy Jenkins): As I have already told the House, Blake was not moved after his reception into Wormwood Scrubs in 1961.

Mr. Digby: Is the Home Secretary aware that the one point which is not clear is whether, despite the fact that there had been two sets of representations by the security authorities earlier, and his own attention was drawn to this matter on assuming office, he exercised his judgment upon it?

Mr. Jenkins: We debated this matter very fully. The other points had better await the outcome of the Mountbatten Inquiry to which they will be fully put.

Mr. Hamling: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will make a further statement on the representations made to his Department concerning the security of Blake in the last two years.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: There were no such representations. But perhaps my hon. Friend will await the report of the Mountbatten Inquiry.

Wild Birds (Importation)

Mr. Dobson: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will now prohibit the importation

of wild birds except by licence by invoking Section 7 of the Protection of Birds Act, 1954; whether he will refer the mater at once to his Advisory Committee; and what representations he has now received from ornithological societies or other interests on this matter.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Miss Alice Bacon): No, Sir. No such suggestion has been made to my right hon. Friend by any ornithological society or other interested body.

Mr. Dobson: Is it not a fact that in the last six months no fewer than several hundred birds have been lost, killed in this despicable way, and should not my right hon. Friend tackle the matter and license the import of wild birds to avoid this destruction?

Miss Bacon: The question of safeguards for birds carried by air is a matter for my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade; but what my hon. Friend is now asking is that we should prohibit imports of all birds, which is a different matter because it would mean that such birds as budgerigars, parrots, and a great many others, would not be able to come into this country at all.

Mr. and Mrs. Kroger (Visits)

Mr. Winnick: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether visits are still allowed between Mr. and Mrs. Kroger, in view of the change of prisons.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: I am considering whether satisfactory arrangements can be made for further visits.

Mr. Winnick: Is not the Home Secretary aware that many of us who consider, of course, that spies should be punished, nevertheless consider they should be treated like other prisoners and there should be the opportunity for Mr. and Mrs. Kroger to visit each other in prison? Would the Home Secretary consider this as a matter or urgency?

Mr. Jenkins: There have been very full opportunities given ever since the Krogers were first imprisoned in 1961, but certain security considerations are posed. I think these should be given overriding weight at the present time, but if, compatibly, these visits can be resumed, they will be resumed.

Crime Prevention (Scientific Devices)

Mr. Dalyell: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what scientific devices, already publicised, he has introduced in the last 12 months for the prevention of crime.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: It is not possible, within the compass of a reply to a Question, to give an adequate account of the continuing process of applying science to police work. I expect shortly to receive the report of the Police Advisory Board Working Party which has been surveying the whole field of police equipment, and I will then write to my hon. Friend.

Mr. Dalyell: When the Home Secretary receives the report, would he give publicity to the work that is being done, which, in the view of many of us, is extremely satisfactory?

Mr. Jenkins: I certainly propose to publish the report at an early stage, and I will certainly consider measures to see that this is brought to the notice of the public as fully as possible.

Prisons (Perimeter Security)

Mr. Mapp: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department since when the use of spikes and/or barbed wire has been prohibited on prison outer walls; and if he will now arrange for modern security means on outer prison walls to be supplied.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: It was found many years ago that obstacles on prison walls facilitated the use of grappling irons. Perimeter security is being strengthened at selected prisons, and I shall consider urgently any recommendations which Lord Mountbatten may make.

Mr. Mapp: Does not the Home Secretary agree that the introduction of modern methods, operated electrically or otherwise, for guarding the top of perimeter and outer prison walls would provide that ten-minute pause that is vital to a prison governor in preventing escapes? That point is so obvious and so sensible that deferment seems entirely unnecessary.

Mr. Jenkins: Modern methods are of great importance and I am extremely anxious to see them introduced, but I

am not sure that spikes or barbed wire are in the category of particularly modern methods. It is the case, however, that the point, as my hon. Friend said, was so obvious that it occurred to me, but technical advice is unanimously against it, and suggests that it does not increase but rather worsens security.

Police and Prison Officers (Protection)

Mr. Mathew: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what further measures of protection he will afford to police and prison officers, in view of the latest outbreaks of violence.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: I cannot at present add to the reply I gave on 18th October to a Question by the right hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys), and to the replies I gave on 20th October to Questions by the hon. Members for Dorset, West (Mr. Wingfield Digby) and for Louth (Sir C. Osborne).—[Vol. 734, c. 8, 391–2, 72.]

Mr. Mathew: Does the Home Secretary realise that this is a matter of great urgency, and one that is causing great disquiet throughout the country? Would he accept that what the public and all informed people want to see is a really unpleasant swingeing deterrent against criminals carrying firearms, and prisoners attacking prison officers, especially where the prisoners are already serving life sentences?

Mr. Jenkins: I am certainly aware of the great urgency and seriousness of the problem, and to some extent I agree with the way in which the hon. Member has posed it. I am proposing, as I think I have already told the House, to introduce in the forthcoming Criminal Justice Bill some further firearms control relating to shotguns.

Mr. Hugh Fraser: Will the right hon. Gentleman also look, during the review period, at the position of night guards in prisons, who are badly paid and work for long hours? Will he consider their rates of pay and conditions of service in his general consideration of the prison service and recruitment to it?

Mr. Jenkins: I will certainly keep that aspect in mind. I am aware that at the present time we are imposing heavy burdens by way of patrols whether by


night guards or prison officers—or, in some cases, by the police. I hope that these burdens are only temporary until we have the Mountbatten Report and can make a more fundamental approach to the question of prison security.

Straying Horses

Mr. Archer: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will introduce legislation to amend Section 135 of the Highways Act, 1959 to increase the penalty which may be imposed upon the owner of a straying horse.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Dick Taverne): The Criminal Justice Bill to be introduced before the end of the year will provide for an increased penalty for this offence.

Mr. Archer: I thank my hon. and learned Friend for that reply but, when the penalty is being considered, will he bear in mind that in one area in my constituency in a very short period, a child has been kicked, a motor-cyclist has been killed, and numerous elderly people have been terrified by straying horses?

Mr. Taverne: I certainly recognise, as my hon. Friend obviously thinks, that the present penalties of, I think, 5s. in respect of each animal, or a maximum of 30s. in each case, are quite inadequate, and we have recognised that in the Bill.

Mr. Hogg: Would the Under-Secretary of State tell us whether the new penalty will attach to other animals besides horses? Other animals are a great danger, too.

Mr. Taverne: The right hon. and learned Gentleman will have to await the Criminal Justice Bill.

Prisoners, Wormwood Scrubs (Unrestricted Association)

Sir Richard Glyn: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what representations had been made by prison officers before 20th October to the effect that the unrestricted association permitted to prisoners throughout all four floors of Wormwood Scrubs made

it impracticable for prison officers to carry out their duty of supervising prisoners' activities and of preventing arrangements being made to effect escape.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: No formal representations were made, but some of the problems resulting from unrestricted association were discussed by the staff with the Governor and the Assistant Director concerned.

Sir Richard Glyn: Would the Home Secretary look at a letter dated 16th September sent to the Prison Department by the prison officers at Wormwood Scrubs, very strongly stressing the lack of necessary security and the impossibility of proper supervision of the unrestricted association between prisoners in large areas in the prison which could not be watched through lack of manpower?

Mr. Jenkins: The position in D Block was specifically considered at a conference of the security committee which was set up at the prison itself, within the prison, and the question of restricting association to the ground floor. It was decided at that time, in 1965, that this would not help, but I have looked at the position since, and I think that there is something in the view that unrestricted association over four floors was a danger, and this has now stopped.

Mr. Sharples: Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that in a reply to a Question, he told me that 318 prisoners were accommodated in D Wing at Wormwood Scrubs, and were looked after by only two prison officers? Does he think that this is adequate?

Mr. Jenkins: I do not think that the hon. Gentleman is quite accurate. There were two prison officers in D Block, but a substantial number of the 318 prisoners were in the recreation hut, where there were two other prison officers. I think that was the position.

Police Officers (Firearm Attacks)

Sir Richard Glyn: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many police officers have been threatened or attacked with firearms in the 12 months to the last convenient date; how many have suffered wounds and how many have been fatally injured; and if he will give comparable figures for the


preceding 12 months and for the 12 months ending October, 1963.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: I will, with permission, circulate a table in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Sir Richard Glyn: Would the right hon. Gentleman agree that those figures show that there has been a marked increase in the use of firearms by criminals in the last two years, since capital punishment has, in effect, been suspended? Would he further agree that this is exactly what the police have for years and years prophesied would happen if ever murder by shooting ceased, in practice, to be a capital offence?

Mr. Jenkins: I agree that there has been a marked and, to me, most disturbing increase, but I would not agree with the exact period the hon. Gentleman mentioned, nor with the deduction he drew from it, for it appears that the worst increase was between 1963 and 1964.

Mr. Molloy: Does not my right hon. Friend think that there should be more stringent penalties imposed for just carrying firearms, without the court needing proof that the firearms were being carried with the intent to do someone some harm?

Mr. Jenkins: There are penalties for the unauthorised carrying of a firearm, and these were substantially increased in the Firearms Act, 1965. It is for the courts to decide how strongly they apply the penalties, but I think the intention of Parliament was made clear when it greatly increased the penalties in 1965.

Following is the table:


ENGLAND AND WALES



1963
1964
1965
9 months to 30th September, 1966


Number of police officers at whom shots were fired
6
15
31
26


Number of police officers wounded as a result
1
1
7
3


Number of police officers killed as a result.
—
—
1
3


Number of police officers who were menaced by firearms
37
61
65
87

Karate

Mr. Braine: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if, in view of the lethal and criminal purposes to which its teachings can be put, he will introduce an inquiry into the growing cult of karate with a view to its effective control.

Mr. Rhodes: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware of the recent establishment of karate clubs in the North of England; whether, in view of the lethal and criminal purposes to which this cult can be put, he will inquire into the possibility of registration of these clubs with police or similar authorities; and whether he will make a statement.

Mr. Taverne: My right hon. Friend is having inquiries made, and will give further consideration to the matter when these have been completed.

Mr. Braine: I thank the hon. and learned Gentleman for that most helpful reply. Will these inquiries cover what are, in my view, the two essential requirements that would be broadly acceptable to bona fide karate clubs? The first is the need for the proper registration of clubs and the licensing of instructors, as is done in the case of boxing. The second is the checking, and even the banning, of correspondence courses and manuals of instruction enabling persons outside the controlled discipline of the clubs to acquire dangerous and, in some cases, lethal knowledge.

Mr. Taverne: The inquiries will be aimed at finding out exactly what the problem is, and we will then consider remedies. As the hon. Member will appreciate, there are difficulties in banning publication, but we will look at all these considerations when the inquiries have been completed.

Mr. Rhodes: Is my hon. and learned Friend aware that at the moment thugs and hooligans can join the clubs? Only this morning I heard that the head of a large club in the North of England welcomed an inquiry on the grounds that, as he put it, undesirable elements were now joining and that some organisers of clubs were only out to make money quickly. That being so, will my hon. and learned


Friend at least make sure that clubs are registered, and that membership lists are available to the police?

Mr. Taverne: What action we take will depend on the outcome of the inquiries, and any information my hon. Friend has will be gratefully received. It is encouraging to find that the karate associations welcome the idea of an inquiry and are willing to co-operate.

Police and Prison Methods (Improvements)

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what improvements in police and prison methods he intends to make arising out of new methods he saw operating in the United States of America during his visit there.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: As regards police, I was particularly impressed by advanced communications systems; patrol arrangements and community relations, and as regards prisons by the emphasis on perimeter security and the development of prison industries. I have put in hand urgent studies to see how these features could be used in the difficult circumstances which apply in this country.

Mr. Lewis: Does the Home Secretary intend to make any of his findings available to the Mountbatten Commission to help with its inquiries?

Mr. Jenkins: If I were asked so to do, I would do so. I think that the general trend of my thoughts on this matter is known in the Department and, through the Secretary, to the Commission.

Drugs

Mrs. Renée Short: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what recommendations are to be made to firms registered under the Drugs Act, 1964, to improve their security arrangements.

Miss Bacon: My right hon. Friend has arranged for Home Office inspectors to visit some of the firms registered under the Drugs (Prevention of Misuse) Act, 1964. As soon as he has received their reports, the trade associations will be invited to discuss the question of improved security.

Mrs. Short: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this matter is very urgent and that the reply she has given is no advance on the reply which she gave to me on 4th August, when answering my Adjournment debate on the subject of drugs? Is she aware that this is a very important source of drugs which reach the illegal market and that this must be stopped? Will she take steps to get matters moving as quickly as possible?

Miss Bacon: My hon. Friend is mistaken in saying that my Answer is no advance on what I said previously. In August I said that all firms registered under the 1964 Act were being asked to provide a description of their security arrangements and their arrangements for drugs in transit. This has already been done and we are now doing a follow-up by having visits by Home Office inspectors to some of the firms.

Mrs. Renée Short: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what action he is now taking to prevent the sale of drugs which purport to be abortifacient.

Miss Bacon: To promote a drug as an abortifacient is already an offence under Section 9 of the Pharmacy and Medicines Act, 1941. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Health is considering the adequacy of this provision in his review of medicines legislation. My right hon. Friend is ready to consider controls over any particular drug if it is shown to be harmful.

Mrs. Short: Is my right hon. Friend aware that large supplies of drugs, generally based on quinine, are being sold expensively as abortifacients, although they are absolutely useless? Is she aware that these drugs can be obtained not only from chemists' shops but from grocers as well? Is she further aware that frequently there are reports of women who have died because of taking overdoses of these useless drugs? Does she not think that these drugs should be available only on doctors' prescriptions?

Miss Bacon: I am aware of what my hon. Friend says and, because of that, I am arranging for quinine to be considered by the Poisons Board; and, if necessary, appropriate action will be taken.

Borstal, Portland (Datainee)

Mr. Peyton: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on Derek Madge, details of whom have been sent to him, who is at present detained in Borstal at Portland.

Miss Bacon: An account of this boy's case has been given to the hon. Member in correspondence by my noble Friend Lord Stonham. The boy's behaviour and response to training have recently improved.

Mr. Peyton: If the Minister is aware that only this week the replies from her Department have been both dilatory and unresponsive, will she not take a further look into this case because it is one in which, if the proper course of treatment were followed, there is at least some hope of a proper cure?

Miss Bacon: I would not agree with the hon. Gentleman in either of the comments he made. This matter was dealt with expeditiously by my noble Friend, Lord Stonham, and while I do not like to discuss individual cases on the Floor of the House, as that could be embarrassing to the boys concerned, if I were to depart from that I think that I could prove that what is supposed to be wrong with this boy is not, in fact, the case.

Hair Sprays

Mr. Gardner: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make regulations to prohibit the sale of highly-flammable hair sprays.

Miss Bacon: Such regulations would have the effect of removing a great many modern hair sprays from the market, and would hardly be justified by the degree of risk. The British Aerosol Manufacturers' Association has recently issued a code of practice which deals, among other things, with warning labels, and I will watch the position in the light of experience of the working of this code.

Mr. Gardner: While appreciating my right hon. Friend's concern for the adornment of the female head, may I ask her whether she has seen recent reports of injuries resulting from the misuse of these hair sprays? Is she aware that in some

areas children are using them as playthings and that some children use them as flame guns when playing at gang war? Will my right hon. Friend consider the question of labelling, as recommended by the trade association, and consider restricting the sales of these sprays to young people?

Miss Bacon: I have seen the reports to which my hon. Friend refers. I have also noted the way in which these sprays have been misused. A real risk can be determined only by subjecting each product to a suitable test for inflammability. I am informed that the Technical Committee of the British Standards Association, which is concerned with aerosol sprays, is at present endeavouring to devise such a test. I am also told that real danger arises not from the spray itself but when the container is made of an inflammable material, which is not so with these hair sprays.

Probation Officers

Mr. Whitaker: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the present actual number, annual rate of increase, and desirable number of probation officers.

Miss Bacon: On 30th September there were 2,467 established probation officers in England and Wales. From 1961 to 1965 inclusive the average annual net increase was 137; for the first nine months of 1966 the net increase was 148. The Government's declared aim is to bring the number up to 3,500 officers by 1970.

Mr. Whitaker: Apart from being essential for the success of after-care and the imminent parole system, would not an early pay rise be both socially just and a shrewd investment in crime prevention?

Miss Bacon: There has been an increase in the pay of probation officers recently. However, perhaps my hon. Friend is referring to the pay of senior probation officers, about which, as he probably knows, there was some difficulty.

Gambling

Mr. Whitaker: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will take steps to control gambling in this country by means of State ownership.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: I am not at present contemplating such an approach to the problem.

Mr. Whitaker: Besides being, as the Sunday Times put it, the best means of preventing crime in this industry, should it not be the public who benefit from what is the nation's fastest-growing and most profitable sector of industry?

Mr. Jenkins: I take note of my hon. Friend's suggestions. I am certainly anxious to deal with this matter, and my approach to this question, on which we are producing a Bill for later in this Session, is to deal particularly with the crime aspects of the matter. However, to move in the way my hon. Friend suggests would be a very radical departure which might arouse conflicting views in Parliament.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that we had a national lottery in the reign of Queen Anne, with the sponsorship of the Archbishop of Canterbury; and, although Queen Anne is dead, could not we have one now?

Mr. Jenkins: I do not recall the fact, but I am interested to learn it.

Mr. Heffer: In view of the growth of betting shops throughout the country, and accepting that the Government are not bringing in a Bill to control gambling as a whole, would my right hon. Friend not agree that he should introduce some interim measures to stop this growth of betting shops and possibly have greater control by local authorities in this connection?

Mr. Jenkins: I will bear in mind any considerations raised by my hon. Friend, although I think that the present position in connection with betting shops is fairly stable.

Mr. Sharples: Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that proposals for the control of gambling have been widely circulated, including to such organisations as the Night Club Association, and would he not agree that hon. Members should be informed of these proposals which, I understand, have even been reproduced in full in the Press?

Mr. Jenkins: If the latter point is correct, then I am not sure that I am able to help hon. Members very much

further. I believe that it is not usual, when making consultations with a view to legislation, to circulate copies to all hon. Members, although it is usual to consult the interested parties. I will send a copy to the hon. Gentleman and will consider whether copies should be made available to anyone else.

Mr. Hogg: Can the right hon. Gentleman give any further news about the probable date on which his proposals will be ready and published?

Mr. Jenkins: I hope to be able to publish and introduce the Bill in the spring.

Escaped Prisoners, Devon (Cost of Searches)

Mr. Peter Mills: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what help he will give to relieve the burden on Devon County Council of the cost of searching for escaped prisoners from Dartmoor Prison and other prisoners in Devon.

Miss Bacon: My right hon. Friend does not propose to change the existing arrangements.

Mr. Mills: Would the right hon. Lady bear in mind that this still costs a lot of time, money and energy and causes considerable annoyance to the County of Devon? Would she not consider even allowing one of the warders on duty outside with working parties to be at least provided with a horse, which would stop a lot of this nonsense?

Miss Bacon: The hon. Gentleman will no doubt realise that, not only because of prison escapes but for many other reasons, there are times when local authorities must meet increased expenditure because of police investigations. The number of escapes in Devon has gone down considerably between 1964 and 1966. In 1964 there were 10 escapes from Dartmoor. In 1966 there were only five.

Mr. Mathew: Does the right hon. Lady realise that this is not only a question of expense; that during periods of escapes an almost intolerable burden is imposed on the constabulary? Is she aware that very often the police are on duty day and night while a watch is being kept and that Devon Constabulary has had to do this for a great many years? Will she look at the matter again?

Miss Bacon: Other areas are also affected. As I said, when one considers the whole of the County of Devon—Dartmoor, Exeter and Halden Camp—one sees that while in 1964 there were 30 escapes, in 1966 there were only 12. The number is, therefore, decreasing as the years go by in Devon County.

Export of Animals

Mr. Peter Mills: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what progress has been made in the collection of information concerning the export of animals for research purposes from interested bodies as suggested in his letter of 25th October, 1966, to the hon. Member for Torrington.

Miss Bacon: Of the 16 organisations consulted, 10 have submitted views, four have indicated that they will submit considered replies later and two have not yet replied.

Mr. Mills: Would not the right hon. Lady agree that the collection of this information is absolutely vital as people are very concerned about this problem? Will she urge those concerned to give this information? Will she back up, support and give every facility to the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Pounder) in his Bill?

Miss Bacon: Yes. I think it was noticeable that when the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Pounder) asked leave to bring in his Bill the other day there was considerable sympathy in all parts of the House. The hon. Member will be interested to know that I recently saw a deputation from the British Council of the Anti-Vivisection Societies about this matter. I hope that various bodies will send in their replies quickly.

Obscene Publications Act

Mr. St. John-Stevas: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will introduce legislation allowing trial by jury in all proceedings under the Obscene Publications Act where the defence of literary merit is raised.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: I understand and sympathise with the hon. Member's concern over this. But there is nothing that I can usefully add at present to the reply given by my right hon. Friend the Minister

of State on 11th August to a Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Mr. Driberg).—[Vol. 733, c. 385.]

Mr. St. John-Stevas: Since the Home Secretary, along with myself, was part of a delegation which called upon his distinguished predecessor, Lord Brooke, to press this reform on him urgently, is not the least that the Home Secretary can do to put his principles into practice and include this in the Criminal Justice Bill?

Mr. Jenkins: I do no think it could be put in the Criminal Justice Bill. We have had two Acts on this subject in the last seven years. But, should an opportunity for legislation arise, I shall endeavour to see that it is put into effect.

Mr. Hogg: Will the right hon. Gentleman note that there are at least two points of view about this subject and that both are likely to be expressed?

Mr. Fowler: In view of the undesirable publicity which always attends these cases, will my right hon. Friend consider at least providing that there shall be no private prosecution before a magistrates' court so that the matter can be examined by the Director of Public Prosecutions?

Mr. Jenkins: I am aware of all these points, but the matter would require legislation.

Retail Trading Hours

Mr. St. John-Stevas: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the Government will initiate legislation to give effect to recommendations in the Home Department booklet, "Retail Trading Hours".

Miss Bacon: The proposals in this document were put forward as a basis of discussion, and it was stated in the introduction that the Government were in no sense committed to them. There is no prospect of legislation in this Session.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: Has the right hon. Lady never heard that the way to hell is paved with good intentions? Can she not use her influence and her charm to get some Parliamentary time for this and other necessary Parliamentary reforms?

Miss Bacon: It is not only a question of Parliamentary time in relation to this


subject. There is the important question of what such a Bill would be if we decided to produce one. As the hon. Member knows, there is no consensus of opinion on this matter. From the replies received it was shown that there is strong support for greater restrictions and equally strong support for the removal of all restrictions. Perhaps I should add that some years ago I was a member of the Gowers Committee on the Shops Acts and I know that there are difficulties inherent in this problem.

Police Force (Resignations)

Mr. Fisher: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will state the number of resignations from the police force to the nearest convenient date in the year 1965–66 compared with 1964–65.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: From 1st October, 1964, to 30th September, 1965, 2,083 policemen, including probationers, resigned from forces in England and Wales. For the comparative period in 1965–66, the figure was 2,869. Recruitment went up from 7,251 in the first period to 8,477 in the second.

Mr. Fisher: Nevertheless, does not the right hon. Gentleman honestly think that the rise in resignations indicates a general sense of frustration in the police force of which he has had recent and tangible personal experience? What is he doing to allay it? How many British policemen replied to the recent Toronto advertisement?

Mr. Jenkins: I could not answer the last point without notice. Certainly the wastage in mid-career is serious and I do not discount its seriousness, but it must be seen in relation to the recruitment efforts, which are very good.

Police (Pay)

Mr. Fisher: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the rise in police pay, due on 1st September, 1966, will be brought into effect at the end of the six-month pay standstill on 1st March, 1967.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave to a Question by my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis) on 3rd November.—[Vol. 735, c. 147.]

Mr. Fisher: In view of the fact that the police in effect have a contract with the Government for their deferred September rise, surely the right hon. Gentleman is not to apply the productivity or low-paid workers formula to the police as that would be inappropriate? If he did so would it not result in further resignations, to the detriment not only of the police but of the public?

Mr. Jenkins: I do not think that the deductions of the hon. Member follow from the Answer to which I have referred him.

Shotguns

Mr. Farr: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what form of control he will introduce to regulate the purchase and use of shotguns after the enactment of the Local Government Bill and before the enactment of the proposed Criminal Justice Bill.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: As explained in the course of the debates on the Local Government Bill, the requirement to pay a fee for a gun licence does not carry with it any regulation of the purchase or use of guns. The introduction of any form of control of the purchase of shotguns would require legislation, which could not be undertaken in advance of the Criminal Justice Bill.

Mr. Farr: Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that that is a highly unsatisfactory state of affairs, especially in view of the Answer he gave earlier today to my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, North (Sir Richard Glyn) in reply to Question No. 9?

Mr. Jenkins: No, I do not for a moment agree that it is unsatisfactory. I think the hon. Member misunderstood the position. The repeal of the provision in the Local Government Act does not affect control at all. At the earliest possible moment, in the Criminal Justice Bill, we shall introduce a measure of control of shotguns which there has not previously been.

Private Property, Offenham (Human Remains)

Sir G. Nabarro: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will now announce his


decision concerning application of Mr. Granville Gardner, Offenham, near Evesham, Worcestershire, for removal of human remains interred in a shallow garden grave 45 feet from his house, the presence of which was not divulged in the title deeds, the widow of the deceased being elderly and bed-ridden; and whether he will authorise removal to consecrated ground of these human remains, under the Burial Acts.

Miss Bacon: My right hon. Friend has decided to issue a licence for this purpose.

Sir G. Nabarro: While thanking the right hon. Lady for bringing this long controversy to a conclusion, may I ask her whether she will now examine the condition of the law in regard to the interment of human remains on private property to ensure a proper interment, that the place of interment is clearly denoted and that when the property changes hands there is an appropriate entry as to the presence of human remains -in this case in a shallow grave—on that private property and that the title deeds note that fact?

Miss Bacon: I will certainly look into the matters which the hon. Member has raised, although I could not give any specific assurance about our conclusions. As the hon. Member knows, this has been a particularly difficult case because we have to consider the feelings of the widow who was elderly and the feelings of the people who bought the property and were unaware that the remains of a human body were interred in their garden, but I hope that now a satisfactory conclusion has been reached to this difficulty.

Civil Defence

Mr. Sharples: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if, in considering his reorganisation of civil defence, he will take into account the services rendered by the civil defence organisation at the time of the Aberfan disaster.

Miss Bacon: Yes, Sir: and I am glad to have this opportunity of paying tribute to the valuable help given by civil defence workers at Aberfan and in other peace-time emergencies. But any

reorganisation must have regard principally to the main function of the civil defence organisation.

Mr. Sharples: While joining with the right hon. Lady in that tribute to this voluntary force, may I ask whether she does not consider that a force of this kind has a rôle to play in disasters of this kind? Will she give the matter further consideration

Miss Bacon: Yes. The value of the help that members of the Civil Defence Corps have given in peace-time emergencies is not in question, but the main task of the Civil Defence Corps is in time of war. I have nothing to add in this respect to the Answer of my right hon. Friend to the Question asked on 25th October.

Mr. Horner: Bearing in mind the enormous area from which these civil defence volunteers were drawn and that there were no fewer than four separate fire brigades involved in the rescue, does not my right hon. Friend agree that the lesson of Aberfan is that civil defence is totally inadequate for its main purpose, bearing in mind that one medium H bomb on Cardiff would create something like 50,000 Aberfans in South Wales?

Miss Bacon: My hon. Friend is getting wide of the question. As he will know, my right hon. Friend is waiting for replies from the local authorities. I take the opportunity of paying tribute to the fire services in addition to the Civil Defence Corps for what they did at Aberfan.

Blood Sports

Mr. William Price: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will introduce legislation to abolish fox-hunting.

Mr. William Price: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will introduce legislation to abolish blood sports.

Miss Bacon: My right hon. Friend has no proposals for legislation on this subject.

Mr. Price: Is my right hon. Friend aware that that Answer will give little satisfaction to the vast majority of people in this country, who want an end to these


sadistic rituals? Does she not agree that urgent action is needed, not in the form of a Private Member's Bill, but by the Government, to stop the unnecessary and unjustified slaughter of animals whose offence is a limited one indeed?

Miss Bacon: I agree with some of the remarks my hon. Friend has made. My right hon. Friend has no proposals for legislation at present, although he is considering this matter in consultation with other members of the Government.

Sir R. Cary: In considering the first question, would the right hon. Lady first consult foxes? I could not imagine anything more disagreeable than the mass reintroduction to the countryside of traps for trapping foxes. To witness any fox biting its way through one of its limbs to free itself from a trap is a most unhappy spectacle.

Miss Bacon: The only foxes which would have any views on this would be those which are dead, and I cannot see any sense in consulting dead foxes.

Mr. Victor Yates: Would my right hon. Friend bear in mind that there is increasing resentment about this and a widespread feeling that the hunting of animals for amusement is not in accordance with a humane society? Will she therefore ask her right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to ensure that there is legislation on this matter at an early date?

Miss Bacon: I will certainly take note of the very strong views which have been expressed, but the Questions asked whether we have any legislation in mind at present. The Answer is "No".

Dangerous Prisoners

Mr. Wingfield Digby: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether there is any machinery in his Department for periodic review of the safety of specially dangerous prisoners.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: In addition to the special allocation which I have already announced, it is a continuous primary duty of prison staff to try to identify dangerous prisoners and secure their safe custody. The cases of prisoners placed on the escape list or made the subject of other special precautions are regularly reviewed.

Mr. Digby: Did not the right hon. Gentleman's earlier Answer to me make it clear that this broke down in some way in the case of Blake and that his case was not drawn to the attention of Ministers?

Mr. Jenkins: I do not think so, because what I said was that those placed on the escape list were regularly reviewed; but Blake was taken off the escape list in 1961.

Children (Foster Parents)

Mrs. Knight: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will now consider introducing legislation to limit the period after which children can be removed from their foster parents by their natural parents.

Miss Bacon: No, Sir. I am writing to the hon. Lady about the safeguards already provided for the welfare of children in such cases.

Mrs. Knight: Is not the right hon. Lady aware that under the present regulations many unscrupulous parents leave their children throughout the entire growing-up years with foster parents, only taking an interest in them again when they become 15 and are earning? In the circumstances, this occasions great distress to foster parents and children alike.

Miss Bacon: Yes; I recognise that and I have done everything I can to urge upon local authorities the necessity of taking advantage of powers that they already have, because certain powers already exist. For example, local authorities may assume parental rights if the parent has abandoned the child or is unfit to have the care of the child for various reasons. I should like to see more local authorities taking advantage of the powers that they have.

Prison Security (Scientific Methods)

Sir R. Cary: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what scientific methods for preventing escapes from prison have been introduced since 1st November, 1964.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: Various electronic and other devices are incorporated in the special wings at Durham, Leicester and


Parkhurst prisons; at Parkhurst there are also closed circuit television and wireless communication. Warning devices, television and wireless communication are in course of installation at Wormwood Scrubs and Wakefield prisons and are planned for other selected prisons.

Prisons (Escapes)

Sir R. Cary: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prisoners have escaped in the last 12 months for which figures are available; what disciplinary action was taken as a result of these escapes; and if he will specify the total number of cases dealt with respectively by the courts and the prison visiting committees, against other prisoners and against prison officers, respectively.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: In the 12 months ending 30th September, 1966, there were 529 escapes of all kinds from prison in England and Wales. Awards under the Code of Discipline were made against 44 prison officers and two night patrols as a result of escapes. Records are not available to show the action taken against other prisoners who aided escapes: in all such cases disciplinary action is taken by the board of visitors or visiting committee or a court.

Sir R. Cary: In regard to disciplinary matters, has the prison governor to consult the Home Secretary before taking action? Surely the prison governor, who is the commander on the spot, ought to take decisions within his own command, within the prison, without consulting the Home Office, in the same way as the Chief Inspector of Constabulary would take decisions in relation to the police?

Mr. Jenkins: Yes. The prison governor is free to take action without consulting the Home Secretary.

Oral Answers to Questions — SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (CENTRAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE)

Mr. Dalyell: asked the Prime Minister when he expects to announce the names of those to serve on the Central Advisory Committee under the chairmanship of the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): As soon as possible, Sir.

Mr. Dalyell: Will engineers be represented? Is the Zuckerman Committee to advise on the merits of big technology subjects such as the Solway and Morecambe barrages? Will its members have the resources to explore the problems of the mobility of skilled manpower between civil and defence research?

The Prime Minister: Members will be appointed in their personal capacity, but it is intended that, unlike earlier committees, this will cover technology and the application of science to industry and, therefore, will certainly be representative of the engineering disciplines. The members of the Committee could certainly give advice on the Solway and Morecambe barrages, but questions of that kind go very wide indeed, affecting regional policy in its very widest sense. The Committee will certainly have the ability to probe into the other questions referred to by my hon. Friend.

Mr. David Price: What will be the relationship of this Committee to the existing Council on Scientific Policy and the Advisory Council on Technology?

The Prime Minister: I think that I did explain this in the House on a previous occasion. The existing Council on Scientific Policy co-ordinates the work on pure research. The Advisory Council on Technology co-ordinates work on technology. It is thought necessary to have an advisory committee bringing the two sides together and also bringing in one or two distinguished scientists from outside the Government, including particularly the President of the Royal Society.

Oral Answers to Questions — EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY

Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: asked the Prime Minister if he is satisfied that the problems arising from the desire of individual members of the European Free Trade Association to join the European Economic Community are properly coordinated as between the Foreign Secretary, the First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, the President of the Board of Trade and


the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Worsley: asked the Prime Minister whether he is satisfied at the co-ordination among Departments of measures designed to facilitate the entry of the United Kingdom into the European Economic Community; and if he will make a statement.

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: I appreciate that co-ordination in this matter has improved since the Prime Minister announced that he is personally leading this venture, but would he nevertheless tell us who, when his own attention is diverted to other matters, is the Minister really responsible? Is it the Foreign Secretary or the First Secretary?

The Prime Minister: The present Ministerial set-up relates to the period while we are having not only the E.F.T.A. Conference but also the visits to the Heads of Government of the Six. If this produces a situation where we can get into negotiations, it will clearly be necessary to recast the Ministerial setup, because one Minister would need to be engaged full time in negotiations. At the present time the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is to go with me on these tours and to co-ordinate the foreign policy aspects. My right hon. Friend the First Secretary will be responsible in particular for the industrial aspects and will be Chairman of the new Advisory Committee of Industry on it.

Mr. Worsley: Does the Prime Minister agree that it is essential that during this period all Government Departments pursue policies consistent with our joining the Common Market and that his right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade, for instance, only recently did not do this, in that he conducted a negotiation with the New Zealand Government, which everyone agrees was a special case, without discussing the question of Common Market entry?

The Prime Minister: The Commonwealth Prime Ministers know exactly what the position is, and indeed there have been discussions on it at recent Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Confer-

ences. I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not saying that we should not be involved in negotiations with the New Zealand Government. As the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home) said yesterday, there is widespread recognition in Europe that special action has to be taken in respect of New Zealand.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: asked the Prime Minister what plans he has for discussions with President de Gaulle on the terms and conditions of a British entry into the Common Market.

The Prime Minister: I would refer the hon. Member to my statement of the 10th of November—[Vol. 735, c. 1539–40.]—and to my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary's speech in the debate yesterday.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: Does the Prime Minister agree that his meetings in Paris are likely to be crucial to the success or failure of this enterprise, and will he assure us that, notwithstanding what he said last week, he will go to Paris ready to discuss European co-operation in such matters as nuclear defence and international monetary arrangements as well as the Treaty of Rome?

The Prime Minister: I agree that the visit to Paris, and, indeed, to other European capitals, is crucial to this operation, but the point of the question raised by the hon. Gentleman would be better dealt with in the debate in which we are now engaged rather than at Question Time. I hope, Mr. Speaker, that I may be able to catch your eye later in the debate, when it is possible that I may refer in passing to the point made by the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Winnick: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that in no circumstances in discussions with the French leader will we agree to a pooling of nuclear weapons and technical "know-how" and that we will not come to any such defence agreement with France?

The Prime Minister: I think that I might, perhaps, say a word about this if I catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, later today. There has been a certain amount of advice given to us in the last week about nuclear policies on this question which, I think, would be unacceptable to us.

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTTISH TRADES UNION CONGRESS

Mr. G. Campbell: asked the Prime Minister if he has yet arranged to see the Scottish Trades Union Congress about the industrial situation in Scotland.

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and myself will be seeing representatives of the Scottish Trades Union Congress on 28th November.

Mr. Campbell: When the Prime Minister sees them, will he take very seriously the likely effects of the squeeze on the industrial areas of Scotland and the ill effects of the Selective Employment Tax on the rural areas?

The Prime Minister: When I see the Scottish T.U.C. representatives we shall take very seriously, as was done also when my right hon. Friend saw them a few weeks ago, all questions affecting industrial development and employment in Scotland.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF AVIATION

Mr. Marten: asked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the future of the Ministry of Aviation.

The Prime Minister: I have as yet nothing to add to the Answer I gave on 25th October to a Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin).—[Vol. 734, c 159.]

Mr. Marten: As it would appear from certain informed sources in the Press that a decision is very soon to come, will the Prime Minister give an assurance that he will take the opportunity of the reshuffle to appoint one Minister to be responsible for all aspects—I emphasise all aspects—of space, satellites and so forth?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman has long enough experience of the Ministry of Aviation to know that one does not, under any Government, believe everything one reads in the Press in the form of speculation about that Ministry. I hope that I shall be able to make a statement about this in a few days. In case, as I understand is possible, the

Opposition may wish now to have the debate on aviation which was postponed from this week, I think that it might be helpful if I were to try to make the statement before that day.

Mr. Philip Noel-Baker: In view of the many developments now going on in civil aviation, will my right hon. Friend consider whether the abolition of the Ministry had better be postponed for some time?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir; I think that these considerations provide the strongest argument for what is now proposed—with which I hope to be dealing in a day or two—for ensuring that the aviation industry is properly linked with all the developments of research, particularly electronics research, which will be available to the Ministry of Technology.

Mr. R. Carr: Is not the Prime Minister aware of the very strong feeling even among those who do not in principle object to his decision to abolish the Ministry at some time or other that this is the very worst time to do it? The distraction of the last few months has caused serious delay in important decisions. Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are many people both inside and outside the House who beg him to postpone this action?

The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman is quite right; there are many hon. Members who take this view. The need to end uncertainty in this matter, which I certainly accept, suggests that we ought to take a quick decision and implement it.

Oral Answers to Questions — DISABLED PERSONS

Dr. David Owen: asked the Prime Minister if he will advise the setting up of a Royal Commission or an independent committee of inquiry to review all aspects of disablement.

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. Many aspects of this problem are already under review and everything possible is being done to improve the services for disabled people. I do not think that a new inquiry now would be likely to move matters forward any faster.

Dr. Owen: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for the consideration he has


given to this matter, but will he agree to look at it in some years' time because the problem of the disabled is very severe, involving a lot of Ministries, and it does need review?

The Prime Minister: I agree with what my hon. Friend has said, and I know his very keen and practical interest in this matter. Naturally, it could be kept under review, but I hope that, by the time to which my hon. Friend refers, there will be action being taken rather than a review or inquiry required.

Dr. Winstanley: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that disabled persons at present receive services from 12 separate sources and that, because so many are responsible, there is a tendency for no one to accept responsibility? Is there not a need for integration?

The Prime Minister: There is always this problem, and a number of Government Departments are inevitably involved—Health, Social Security, Education, Housing and Local Government for local authority services—but I have looked into it very carefully and I do not believe that it would be in the best interests of those concerned if we tried to centralise administration and have something in the nature of a disabled persons' department. All these Departments have a job to do, and I am satisfied that there is proper co-ordination between them.

Mr. Maurice Macmillan: Would not a research unit within the Ministry of Social Security of the kind which has already been advocated go a fair way to meeting some of the difficulties? Will the right hon. Gentleman again consider setting up such a unit to take account of the problems not only of the disabled but of all those in need, particularly when a number of different authorities and different people are involved?

The Prime Minister: I understand the force of that argument, but a great deal of research has been done and is being done on this problem. A great deal is known about it. The problem is one of priorities and of finding the funds to do everything one wants to be able to do within the social service field, in which there are some very important competing claims.

Mr. Hogg: Although the needs of chronically disabled and incapacitated

persons are the same, do not the different rates of compensation—very largely quite inadequate rates over a wide range—constitute one of the holes in our present social security system, and is there not need for a comprehensive review of the whole matter?

The Prime Minister: The question of the rates for the chronic sick and the disabled, both industrially and war disabled, is a difficult one and by no means so simple as, I think, the right hon. and learned Gentleman may be suggesting. This is constantly being looked at, but I think that it must be part of the ordinary working of the Departments concerned. I am not sure that a review or Royal Commission as suggested would do very much to help in that particular problem.

Oral Answers to Questions — RHODESIA

Mr. Elystan Morgan: asked the Prime Minister if he will now amend the six principles named by him on the basis of a possible settlement of the Rhodesian question so as to make the granting of majority rule to the peoples of that Colony a condition precedent to a settlement.

The Prime Minister: Our position on majority rule is made clear in the communiqué issued after the recent meeting of Commonwealth Prime Ministers.

Mr. Morgan: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is by now very clear that the white minority in Rhodesia will do everything in its power to frustrate the achievement of majority rule? Did not this House delude itself in 1909 on the British South Africa Act into believing that the colour bar would be removed very soon, and is it not certain that the only guarantee of majority rule is majority rule itself?

The Prime Minister: I was not around in 1909, although I have studied what happened. As regards majority rule in Rhodesia, successive Governments have laid down that there must be absolute guarantees of unimpeded progress to majority rule. This is one of the big issues. I am not at this moment in a position to answer the rest of my hon. Friend's question in which he asked whether I am now clear about the attitude of certain people in Rhodesia. I


hope to be clearer in a few days and to make a statement to the House.

Mrs. Biggs-Davison: Is not the suggestion made in the hon. Gentleman's Question entirely in line with the right hon. Gentleman's own letter to Dr. Mutasa? In order to remove some of the mistrust which has bedevilled relations between London and Salisbury, will the right hon. Gentleman now make clear where he stands on the question whether or not there must be majority rule before independence?

The Prime Minister: I have fully answered questions about the letter to Dr. Mutasa on several occasions in the House. The Rhodesian Government, with whom we were negotiating, were in no doubt about the position. I discussed it with them. As regards distrust, as the hon. Gentleman knows from the exchanges, the Rhodesian Government made their position very clear, and, when Mr. Smith was on the telephone on the last morning before U.D.I., he said that he placed no responsibility on my shoulders for the breakdown. He said over a long period that it was distrust about statements made earlier, before this Government came to office, that caused the difficulty, which I have always said was a little unfair to our predecessors.

Oral Answers to Questions — ELECTORAL REFORM

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the progress made on the question of electoral reform.

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. I think we should first await the report of Mr. Speaker's Conference on Electoral Law.

Mr. Hamilton: Can my right hon. Friend say whether it is intended to produce and present to this House a package deal on which the House will have to vote in toto or whether we will have an opportunity to vote on each proposal separately? Can he also say whether the terms of reference of the Speaker's Conference can be extended to include electoral reform in Northern Ireland?

The Prime Minister: I do not think that there is any question of extending the terms of reference of Mr. Speaker's Conference on these matters. When we

have reports from Mr. Speaker's Conference, it is a matter for consideration by the Government and other authorities in the House through the usual channels and in other ways as to how the House should best approach the reports.

Mr. Turton: As you, Mr. Speaker, have already sent three reports to the Prime Minister—the last reaching him more than seven months ago—can we know when we are to have the Government's observation on these reports?

The Prime Minister: I would like to consider that and perhaps give a reply to the right hon. Gentleman because, of course, one of the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) is whether we should make piecemeal comments on individual reports or wait until we have more of a general pattern of proposals for electoral change.

Mr. Doughty: Is the Prime Minister aware that one of the most important aspects of electoral reform is the reform of electoral boundaries? Will he give an assurance that when the Boundary Commission's Report is received legislation will be introduced in this Session?

The Prime Minister: I have no statement to make on that point at the moment. When the Government are ready to make a statement, the hon. and learned Gentleman can be sure that we shall do so.

TELEPHONE TAPPING

The following Questions stood upon the Order Paper:

Mr. RUSSELL KERR: To ask the Prime Minister on how many occasions warrants have been issued for the tapping of hon. Members' private telephones; and if he will give an assurance that no such warrants will be issued.

Mr. DONNELLY: To ask the Prime Minister whether he will state the criteria upon which he has issued his warrant for the tapping of hon. Members' telephones.

Mr. PETER M. JACKSON: To ask the Prime Minister if he will bring up to date the statistics of warrants authorising telephone-tapping given to the Committee of Privy Councillors; and whether he


will issue an annual return, showing the number of permissions that have been given, the number that have been withdrawn, and the number outstanding at the date of making the return.

Sir T. BEAMISH: To ask the Prime Minister whether he will give an assurance that the issue of warrants giving authority to tap telephone conversations remains under the Home Secretary's sole authority; and in what respects the criteria governing the issue of such warrants have been changed since October, 1964.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): With permission, I will now answer Questions Nos. Q13, Q14, Q15 and Q16.
The House will know that, since the publication of the Report of the "Committee of Privy Councillors appointed to Inquire into the Interception of Communications" in October, 1957, it has been the established practice not to give information on this subject.
Nevertheless, on this one occasion, and exceptionally because these Questions on the Order Paper may be thought to touch the rights and privileges of this House, I feel it right to inform the House that there is no tapping of the telephones of hon. Members, nor has there been since this Government came into office.
The House will, I know, understand that the fact that I have felt it right to answer these Questions today in no way detracts from the normal practice whereby my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and myself are unable to answer Questions relating to these matters.

Mr. Russell Kerr: May I thank my right hon. Friend for his reply? However, is he aware that many hon. Members on both sides of the House believe, rightly or wrongly, that their telephones have been tapped? While the whole House would acquit my right hon. Friend of any knowledge or complicity in such a perversion of the nation's security arrangements, will he consult with my right hon. Friends the Home Secretary and the Paymaster-General—[Laughter.]—to make sure that some of our security people are not undertaking free enterprise of a rather smelly kind on this issue?

The Prime Minister: On the issue of the belief of certain hon. Members that their telephones are being tapped, I would point out that my postbag and those of many other right hon. and hon. Members suggest that a very high proportion of the electorate generally are under the delusion that their telephones are being tapped. This delusion spreads to hon. Members and I should say that I used to suffer from it myself at one time.
As for the general position, I hope that my statement will be an answer to some of the scurrilous comment in the Press during the last three or four days about the attitude of the Government to this question and will also answer, I hope, some questions put by hon. Members on Monday and the usual Pavlovian titter which occurred when the name of my right hon. Friend the Paymaster-General was mentioned—not least because the only connection that he has had with this question was when I sought his advice on reviewing the practice about tapping Members' telephones when we came into office. He therefore shares such responsibility as I can take for the present arrangements.

Mr. Donnelly: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this is an extremely serious matter and that three questions arise? The first is the criteria on which any telephones belonging to anyone are ever tapped. Will my right hon. Friend make it clear that there has been absolutely no change in the circumstances listed in the Report of the Privy Councillors?
The second point concerns who is entitled to authorise such tappings. Will my right hon. Friend make it clear that these people are known and identifiable, because it is a very important matter?
Thirdly, when the matter goes outside national security and the whole question of detection of crime, will my right hon. Friend give instructions that any extraneous information which may be discovered as a result of tapping will not go beyond the security authorities to anyone who is not a member of the security services?

The Prime Minister: My answer referred to the tapping of telephones of hon. Members. As regards any other person or group of persons, the position


is exactly as stated by the then Prime Minister to the House after the publication of the Privy Councillors' Report and I have nothing to add to or subtract from what was said then. Authority for tapping rests with my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, as the Report made clear.
So far as the special case of Members of Parliament is concerned, as I have said, following the discussion I had, shortly after we took office, with the then Home Secretary, the policy has been laid down in the terms which I have again stated today.

Mr. Jackson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many hon. Members believe that both authorised and unauthorised tapping is increasing? Is he further aware that paragraph 130 of the Report of the Privy Councillors stated that
… there can be no certainty that the unauthorised tapping of telephones does not occur and it might even be done without the commission of a trespass on private or Crown property."?
and that paragraph 131 states—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Questions even on telephone tapping must be concise.

The Prime Minister: The position regarding unauthorised tapping—and this also relates to the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham (Mr. Russell Kerr)—is as follows: any tapping that, in accordance with the rules of the Report, becomes necessary by any Crown servant concerned with the things covered in that Report, can only be done with the individual authority of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary under very strict conditions.
If the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for The High Peak (Mr. Peter M. Jackson) relates to a practice which one understands has developed in other countries, and is causing concern here—tapping by private persons to steal industrial secrets, for example—that is a separate matter and does not come within the remit of Question and Answer in this House.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for The High Peak (Mr. Peter M. Jackson) did not get his question over. Would he like to put it now?

Mr. Jackson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that paragraph 131 of the Report states that Parliament might consider

whether legislation should be passed to make unauthorised telephone tapping illegal?

The Prime Minister: That is an entirely different matter from the subject raised in the Questions on the Order Paper today. It has, however, been raised at Question Time with the Postmaster-General on past occasions.

Sir T. Beamish: May I press the right hon. Gentleman on this point? Since the tapping and taping of private telephone conversations without the knowledge of the Post Office and without authority is much easier than many people imagine—and I assure the right hon. Gentleman that I am not suffering from delusions and would gladly give him confidential evidence—will the Prime Minister consider the question in paragraph 131 that the unauthorised tapping of private telephone conversations might be made an offence?

The Prime Minister: I would be glad to consider any evidence the hon. and gallant Gentleman sends me. I know that my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General would also want to consider it to see whether there was a case fully made out for dealing with "private enterprise" telephone tapping of the kind that the hon. and gallant Gentleman has in mind. I hope, however, that the answer I have given to his and other questions will put into perspective some of the monstrous accusations made in certain newspapers over the past four days about the Government's attitude towards tapping of Members' telephones.

Mr. Lubbock: Is the Prime Minister aware that one of the reasons for the widespread delusion which he has mentioned is the grossly unsatisfactory state of the telephone system as a whole? To give one example, when I tried to telephone someone yesterday, I burst in on another private conversation between two individuals on three consecutive occasions. Will the Prime Minister therefore ask his right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General to get a move on with improving the telephone system so that these allegations are not made?

The Prime Minister: That is a separate question, which has been raised many times with the Postmaster-General. I notice that the level of the supplementary questions now is very different


from the dramatic build-up given to this subject by some of the Conservative Press over the past three days.

Mr. Driberg: Is my right hon. Friend aware that at least two of his answers have implied quite clearly that there was tapping of hon. Members' telephones before the present Government came to power in 1964? Would he say anything more about that?

The Prime Minister: I hold no responsibility for what was done in this matter before the present Government came to power, but it is fair to point out that the Privy Councillors' Report itself said that Members of Parliament should not be treated differently from members of the public. It is always a difficult problem. As Mr. Macmillan once said, there can only be complete security with a police State, and perhaps not even then, and there is always a difficult balance between the requirements of democracy in a free society and the requirements of security.
With my right hon. Friends, I reviewed the practice when we came to office and decided on balance—and the arguments were very fine—that the balance should be tipped the other way and that I should give this instruction that there was to be no tapping of the telephones of Members of Parliament. That was our decision and that is our policy. But if there was any development of a kind which required a change in the general policy, I would, at such moment as seemed compatible with the security of the country, on my own initiative make a statement in the House about it. I am aware of all the considerations which I had to take into account and I felt that it was right to lay down the policy of no tapping of the telephones of Members of Parliament.

Mr. Frederic Harris: Can the Prime Minister tell me why any Labour Members should imagine that their conversations on the telephone are interesting enough for them to be tapped?

The Prime Minister: I do not think that this matter, which raises very deep concern about the privileges and rights of hon. Members, is in any sense a party question. My decision that hon. Members'

telephones should not be tapped was, of course, unrelated to the tapping of telephones of hon. Members of any particular party; and I am sure that the attitude of the previous Government was also completely unrelated to the party affiliations of any hon. Members concerned.

Mr. Gordon Walker: I am very glad to hear the Prime Minister's decision that no hon. Members' telephones should be tapped, but would he agree that, in principle, there is a distinction between the privilege of a Member concerned in some proceedings in Parliament and the similarity of all Members with ordinary citizens in all other respects, and that it is important that this principle should be maintained and asserted?

The Prime Minister: I certainly agree about that and I do not myself believe that this involves a question of privilege, as we understand it in the narrow sense in this House. My original Answer was drafted to make that clear. Someone has to take the decision one side or the other of this very, very difficult balance. With my concept of responsibilities to the House, I feel that, although the arguments are finely argued in the Report of the Privy Councillors, it has been right to alter the practice and to say that there should be no tapping whatsoever.

Sir Ian Orr-Ewing: Is the Prime Minister aware that during the nine years which have elapsed since the Privy Councillors' Report was published, unauthorised tapping of telephones has become both much easier and much more ingenious and that, therefore, the recommendation of the Privy Councillors in paragraph 131 has now become urgent? As it is easy to make an unauthorised tapping of a telephone cable, will the Government give serious consideration to making it illegal?

The Prime Minister: I agree about the seriousness, particularly if tapping comes to be developed in this country on the scale on which it has developed in other countries for use by one industrial company against another industrial company. This matter has been raised in the House before and it will be further considered. My answers have related not to unauthorised, but to authorised tapping, and I have stated the practice which we are following.

Mr. Fitt: Would the Prime Minister agree to extend the assurances which he has given to the House to cover Members of Parliament in Northern Ireland? Is he aware that it is very well known that the Government of Northern Ireland indulge in telephone tapping for party political purposes?

The Prime Minister: If my hon. Friend wants to send me any evidence which he has on that subject—

Mr. Fitt: Will my right hon. Friend ask Captain O'Neill next time he sees him?

The Prime Minister: —it will be studied with very great care. I can assure him that the answers which I have given this afternoon have related to all questions and practices connected with authorised tapping under the coverage of the White Paper and for which my right hon. Friend and I are responsible.

Mr. Chichester-Clark: Is the Prime Minister aware that the question of the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) was the gross terminological inexactitude which he knows it to be and which he has never been able to substantiate in this House and which should not have been made?

The Prime Minister: I asked for evidence, but this afternoon I was dealing with areas within the jurisdiction of my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Fitt: On a point of order. Is my right hon. Friend aware that telephone tapping was admitted in the Northern Ireland Parliament?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member must know that that was not a point of order.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Heath: May I ask the Leader of the House to state the business of the House for next week?

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Richard Crossman): Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY, 21ST NOVEMBER—Supply [4th Allotted Day]: Committee.
There will be a debate on Aviation, which will arise on a Motion for the Adjournment of the House.
TUESDAY, 22ND NOVEMBER —Remaining stages of the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation Bill and of the National Coal Board (Additional Powers) Bill.
Motions on the National Health Service (Superannuation) (Amendment) Regulations.
WEDNESDAY, 23RD NOVEMBER —Second Reading of the Local Government (Termination of Reviews) Bill and of the Arbitration (International Investment Disputes) Bill [Lords].
Remaining stages of the Land Registration Bill [Lords.]
THURSDAY, 24TH NOVEMBER—Debate on the First Report from the Select Committee on Broadcasting etc., of Proceedings in the House of Commons.
FRIDAY, 25TH NOVEMBER —Private Members' Motions.
MONDAY, 28TH NOVEMBER— The proposed business will be: Supply [5th Allotted Day]: Committee.

Mr. Heath: Can the right hon. Gentleman yet say when either the Prime Minister or the Commonwealth Secretary is likely to make a statement soon about Rhodesia? Can he confirm his undertaking that the Government will not take action until there has been a debate on the White Paper itself?

Mr. Crossman: We appreciate the forbearance of hon. Members opposite. The Prime Minister hopes to make a statement next week and, after that, we will consult through the usual channels.

Mr. Mendelson: In view of the serious drop in the level of production, especially in manufacturing and engineering, will my right hon. Friend arrange for a very early debate, preferably next week, on this development and on the connection between it and the level of unemployment at present and in the immediate future?

Mr. Crossman: I appreciate the anxiety of my hon. Friend about this question, but I think that we must keep to the business for next week. However, I will certainly consider how far the House desires a debate on this issue in the near future.

Mr. Lubbock: Did I understand the Prime Minister to say at Question Time that a statement about the future of the


Ministry of Aviation would be made in advance of the debate on aviation on Monday? Can we therefore take it that the statement will be made by the Prime Minister on Monday?

Mr. Crossman: I think that I heard the Prime Minister's words and I thought that he said that he hoped to make a statement in a few days.

Hon. Members: Hon. Members indicated dissent.

Mr. Crossman: My right hon. Friend chose his words very carefully. He said that he hoped to make a statement in a few days. I cannot tell the House precisely when he will make a statement. It may be made before Monday, but I am not sure of that.

Mr. English: In view of the assurance given by my right hon. Friend last week, could he say when the Government's Motion on the Broadcasting Committee's Report will be laid before the House, so that we have time to consider it?

Mr. Crossman: I feel remiss in not being able to give this answer. We shall lay it in good time for the House to consider it. I do not think that my hon. Friend will find that there is any controversy about it.

Mr. R. Carr: Will the right hon. Gentleman not trust his memory but have a careful look tomorrow at what his right hon. Friend said, because we certainly understood that, while not promising a statement before the debate, he said that he would, if possible, make it before the aviation debate on Monday, which would be for the convenience of the House?

Mr. Crossman: We are not contradicting each other. I think that the words which my right hon. Friend used were "within a few days". That would, naturally, lead some people to presume that it would be before the debate next Monday. All I said was that I could not go further than the precise words which he used.

Mr. Heffer: Further to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Penis-tone (Mr. Mendelson), would my right hon. Friend give an assurance that if we cannot have a debate next week we shall have one the week after, in view of the growing feeling among Members on this

side of the House about the rise in unemployment?

Mr. Crossman: I think that I have said all that I can say on this point. If this is a subject which the House wishes to debate urgently, we will certainly discuss it through the usual channels and ascertain the strength of feeling on this side of the House as well.

Mr. MacMaster: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it is not possible for hon. Members to obtain from the Vote Office an official copy of the Treaty of Rome? Will he take steps, as was done when this matter was last discussed, to make sure that copies of the treaty are available other than at two days' notice on the green form?

Mr. Crossman: I am grateful for that information. I will certainly make sure that this is available from now on.

Mr. Dalyell: Since the Sports Council issued its first annual Report on Monday, is there a possibility of a debate on sport in the fairly near future?

Mr. Crossman: I am prepared to consider the possibility of a debate, but it would be going too far to say that it will be in the fairly near future.

Mr. Farr: In view of the fact that the desire of the House for a large-scale debate on Gibraltar was recently thwarted in part by the Liberal Party, would the right hon. Gentleman be good enough to say whether he can put aside an early date for a debate on this very important subject?

Mr. Crossman: I should have thought that it was very unlikely. We had a good many hours on Gibraltar. But I repeat that I think that we are still hoping to have a two-day debate on foreign affairs before Christmas. This might be an issue which could be raised in that debate.

Mr. Rankin: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is still a little ambiguity about the promised statement by the Prime Minister on the future of the Ministry of Aviation? In view of the fact that this will be an important debate, would he tell us quite clearly that we can depend of a statement being made about the future of this Ministry before the debate takes place?

Mr. Crossman: The imprecision in my statement was accurate and precise—that is to say, I was precisely imprecise in saying that I could not go further than the Prime Minister's statement.

Sir C. Osborne: May I support the plea of the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson) for a very early debate on the problem of production, in view of the fact that most industrialists expect production to fall still further and the Prime Minister's threat of 2 million unemployed may well come about? Cannot this be treated as a matter of great urgency?

Mr. Crossman: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman knows very well that this is the kind of subject which the Opposition could put down for debate on one of their Supply days.

Mr. Michael Foot: Would my right hon. Friend recall the answer which he gave last week to the request for a debate on Motion No. 255, which referred to the statements made by the right hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Barber)?

[That this House deplores the conduct of the right hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale who, in Standing Committee D on 8th November, 1966, made a squalid personal attack, on the basis of only a newspaper report, on a right hon. Member who was not, and could not be, present, and refused to withdraw it even when categorically assured that the newspaper report was incorrect.]

My right hon. Friend did not refuse the request for a debate, but he said that it would be better if the matter could be dealt with by a simple retraction by the right hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale. Nothing of the sort happened. In fact, the right hon. Gentleman committed the offence again. Indeed, he completely misled the House about what had occurred—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman cannot argue the issue now. He must ask for time to discuss the Motion.

Mr. Crossman: I can only repeat what I said last week. I should have thought that it would be for the good of the House if the right hon. Gentleman would withdraw these remarks. That would end this whole discussion.

Mr. Wingfield Digby: When will legislation be introduced to implement the Geddes Report on Shipbuilding, as the matter is now becoming urgent?

Mr. Crossman: I cannot give a precise date.

Mr. Mapp: May I press my right hon. Friend to recall his statement last week? Can he say whether, before Christmas, we can have a debate on the White Paper on Transport, since we have had the White Paper for three or four months?

Mr. Crossman: I do not expect that there will be a debate on the White Paper before Christmas, but I would point out to my hon. Friend that the part of the White Paper dealing with waterways can be debated on an early occasion—next Friday, I think.

Mr. Hastings: On the coming debate on Rhodesia, can the right hon. Gentleman confirm what I think is the case, that many hon. Member feel that if the negotiations break down the purpose of this debate must be to discuss this critical matter before, and not after, the Government have made up their mind what to do next regardless of the White Paper?

Mr. Crossman: I have borne that in mind. I repeat the assurance that the debate will take place before the Government make up their mind and announce the policy on the next step.

Mr. Philip Noel-Baker: May I revert to the Ministry of Aviation matter? Would my right hon. Friend ask the Prime Minister whether he will make his statement before Monday, in view of the strong wish of Members on both sides of the House?

Mr. Crossman: Certainly. I will pass a message to the Prime Minister. I am sure that my right hon. Friend is aware that if it is humanly possible the Prime Minister will make the statement in time for the debate.

Mr. Biffen: On Wednesday's business, can the right hon. Gentleman confirm that, after the Second Reading of the Local Government (Termination of Reviews) Bill, it is the Government's intention that this Bill shall be considered by a Committee of the whole House?

Mr. Crossman: I had assumed that it would go upstairs, but I will consider this


as a possibility. I should not have thought that this Bill, which, if I remember aright, deals mainly with the problem of London education—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I understand that the hon. Gentleman is referring to the Bill on the Boundaries Commission. I will consider his point and give a considered answer.

Mr. Hector Hughes: In view of the urgency of the situation created by the collapse of part of Aberdeen University's building and the importance to the students and the dependants of the men who were killed, would my right hon. Friend find time for a discussion on Motion No. 252 on the Order Paper dealing with that subject?

[That this House is shocked by the recent collapse of the new building at the College of Technology in Aberdeen University, resulting in the loss of four lives and injuries to other persons; and is of opinion that the Government should set up a tribunal under the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act, 1921, to ascertain the technical and other defects which led to the collapse, to hear technical and other evidence, and also counsel for the dependants to ascertain and award compensation to the dependants.]

The matter has only been referred to the Procurator-Fiscal instead of there being a full debate and full inquiry.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. and learned Gentleman has made his point. He cannot argue beyond that.

Mr. Crossman: I have nothing to add to the answer which I gave to my hon. and learned Friend last week. We must await the result of the inquiry.

Mr. van Straubenzee: Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that this time last week he was good enough to give an undertaking that he would consult the Minister of Power about whether the Members of Standing Committee D might be enabled to take part in Thursday's business on the Floor of the House? May it be assumed that the same undertaking applies this week?

Mr. Crossman: We have had two days this week, and I should have thought that the problems of the Members of that Committee had been greatly eased by the holding of a two-day debate.

Mr. Lipton: Regarding the Motion on broadcasting, which the Government are to submit next Thursday and which the Leader of the House says will be non-controversial, may we have an assurance that, if necessary, a free vote will be allowed on that Motion?

Mr. Crossman: I have already given an assurance that there will be a free vote on the whole issue of television next Thursday.
May I add to my reply to the hon. Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen)? I misunderstood the hon. Gentleman's question. The question of the winding up of the Boundaries Commission, which is the subject of the Bill for debate next Wednesday, does not seem to me to be a matter which we need debate on the Floor of the House. I was correct in so far as the second part of the Bill deals with the question of the review of education in London. Neither of these seems to me to be an issue which we need debate on the Floor of the House. I should have thought that they could suitably be taken upstairs.

Mr. van Straubenzee: On a point of order. As it is quite clear that the Leader of the House unintentionally misunderstood a question by an hon. Member, would you, Mr. Speaker, permit another question to be asked during business questions on Thursday next week?

Mr. Speaker: Certainly. The modest request of the hon. Gentleman will be granted.

Mr. Frederic Harris: Having had the Second Reading of the London Government Bill this week to postpone the London borough elections from next year to the following year, may I ask whether there is any truth in the suggestion that there will be a postponement of the Greater London Council elections as well?

Mr. Speaker: Order. That does not seem to me to be a business question.

Mr. Onslow: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a disproportionate amount of Question Time seems to be taken up with purely domestic matters of the House to the exclusion of more important business, and will he look at this? Secondly, will he tell us whether the


Prime Minister has accepted responsibility for answering future questions on the subject of telephone tapping?

Mr. Crossman: On the first part of the hon. Gentleman's question, it is for hon. Members to decide what Questions they put down. It is not for the Leader of the House to make an allocation of subjects.
As regards the second part, the Prime Minister had four Questions transferred for today in order to make the statement, which I am sure satisfied the House.

Mr. Awdry: The right hon. Gentleman referred to waterways in his answer to a question about the White Paper on transport. Only about five sections of it deal with waterways. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many hon. Members would welcome an early debate on the White Paper?

Mr. Crossman: I am aware of that. I said that the only subject which there was any remote chance of debating was a minor part of the White Paper. I do not think I can give any assurance about a debate on the White Paper before Christmas. We have a very full business programme.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: There is no second time round on business questions.

Mr. Iremonger: On a point of order. Mr. Speaker, if questions arising on the right hon. Gentleman's statement about the business of the House for next week have been concluded, would it be in order to raise a point with you? It is one

which puzzles me, and arises out of a remark made by the right hon. Gentleman. It is a remark which is made from time to time, and one which, with respect, the House on consideration might deplore.
The right hon. Gentleman said that there would be a free vote. May I respectfully submit to you that such an expression is out of order? All votes in this House are the votes of hon. Members, and it ill-becomes the Leader of the House to talk about a free vote. There are no such things as usual channels, according to the rules of order of the House, and to refer to a free vote in a formal statement by the Leader of the House creates a totally wrong impression of the constitutional position which prevails. It is very much to be regretted, and should be withdrawn.

Mr. Speaker: That is a very interesting exercise in semantics, but I think that the House understands what is meant by a free vote. Nothing out of order was said in that reply by the Leader of the House.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (SUPPLY)

Ordered,
That this day Business other than the Business of Supply may be taken before Ten o'clock.—[Mr. John Silkin.]

WELSH AFFAIRS

Matter of Education in Wales and Monmouthshire, being a matter relating exclusively to Wales and Monmouthshire, referred to the Welsh Grand Committee for their consideration.—[Mr. Crossman.]

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY

[3RD ALLOTTED DAY] [2nd Series]

Considered in Committee

[Sir ERIC FLETCHER in the Chair]

Motion made, and Question, That the Chairman do report Progress and ask leave to sit again—[Mr. Bishop],—put and agreed to.

Committee report Progress; to sit again Tomorrow.

Orders of the Day — ADJOURNMENT

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[The Prime Minister.]

EUROPE

Mr. Speaker: May I remind the House again that there are still more than 70 hon. Members who wish to take part in this debate. Most right hon. and hon. Members co-operated yesterday—some hon. Members did not—and as a result we were able to get more Members into yesterday's debate than we might have done if hon. Members had made long speeches.

4.5 p.m.

Mr. Edward Heath: I have already welcomed the Prime Minister's statement that he and the Foreign Secretary are to make a still deeper probe into the question of Britain becoming a member of the European Economic Community. I have assured the right hon. Gentleman of our support for any genuine attempt to achieve this, and I repeat both that welcome and that assurance now.
During the last few days we have heard from Ministers a complete change of words. I must confess to the House that this has been music in my ears. Things which were wholeheartedly damned during the previous negotiations, and in the intervening years, and, indeed, right up to a fortnight ago, are now tolerable, and at times almost attractive to the Treasury Bench opposite.
The Community, I am delighted to know, is now found to be outward-looking. It has been discovered that, after all, it does a considerable amount of

trade with Eastern Socialist countries. This is very welcome. The association of the African and West Indian Commonwealth is not now a great colonial plot, but is helpful to all the developing countries. I think that one can sum it up by saying that what, five years ago, was about to be abject surrender has become at least a merchant adventure. All of this is welcome. How much sweeter the words would have been five years ago, but I am grateful for them now.
I think that the Government still have some way to go, and I should like to deal with three things. I do not propose to try to cover all the ground. I just want to address myself to certain points. I must confess to the Prime Minister that I found the speeches of Ministers yesterday somewhat lacking in reality. I had a feeling that over the House there hung an atmosphere of scepticism, and I am sure that it is the desire of the Prime Minister and his right hon. Friends to dispel this.
I think that there are two reasons for it. First, that the Ministers who spoke yesterday showed some lack of understanding of the real nature and purpose of the European Economic Community with whom they wish to negotiate. Secondly, because Ministers have so far refused to discuss publicly the policy of the French Government and the President of France. This is the key to the whole situation this time, as it proved to be last time. I was interested to hear the Prime Minister say that he would touch on this in passing when winding up the debate tonight, but I hope, for the reasons which I shall give, that he will touch on it in considerable detail.
The third thing which I should like to do is to put forward a programme which I hope the Government will follow in the path on which they have now embarked.
May I, first, say something about the European Economic Community. I have used the somewhat cumbersome word "Community", because the Community is so much more than a market. I have constantly felt that the phrase "Common Market" under-estimates and undervalues the Community, and, for this reason, tends to mislead those who have to deal with it. These countries are living and working together, and have made


common rules and regulations to cover the whole sphere of their economic lives.
My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith), as he has so often done in the past, called attention to the question of sovereignty which arises from this, and I believe that he does so quite rightly. We have differed in the past, and no doubt we shall differ again today about it. Those who say that the British people must realise what is involved in this are absolutely right. There is a pooling of sovereignty. Member countries of the Community have deliberately undertaken this to achieve their objectives, and, because they believe that the objectives are worth that degree of surrender of sovereignty, they have done it quite deliberately. Why? Because the original organisations, such as O.E.E.C., which did not involve the surrender of sovereignty, did not produce the answer that was required. They did not produce prosperity, economic growth, or the political purpose that those who created the Communities wanted.
It is important that we should frankly recognise this surrender of sovereignty and its purpose. I, together with most of my hon. and right hon. Friends, have always made it plain that we should approach this matter in the same way. Is it valuable enough for us to go into the Community and be prepared to make the required surrender of sovereignty? This is all set out in detail in the Treaty of Rome, and is governed by that Treaty. I believe that it is worth while.
I want to touch briefly upon the question of the agreement which was arrived at at Luxembourg last February among the members of the Community. This is in the minds of Ministers when they talk about the position of sovereignty or the position of the E.F.T.A. countries. The French position was quite clear, namely, that very important matters ought to be agreed unanimously. That does not alter the fact that the Community, in its life today under the Treaty of Rome, is carrying on its work by qualified majority voting. This is now going on, and we should recognise that, because that is how the members of the Community make their decisions at the moment. When we surrender some sovereignty we shall have a share in the sovereignty of the Community as a whole, and of other

members of it. It is not just, as is sometimes thought, an abandonment of sovereignty to other countries; it is a sharing of other people's sovereignty as well as a pooling of our own.
As for the question of the nature of the Community, its members have set up, under a framework of law—the Treaty of Rome—certain characteristics which they believe to be essential to it. This is fundamental to any negotiation carried on with the Community, for the reason that its members believe that those characteristics are essential to its future success. Although they will in some cases welcome new members they do not believe that the advantages to be gained from new members outweigh the difficulties or justify changing the nature of the Community as they have created it. That is certain. If we are to negotiate with the Community, we have to accept this fact.
This leads me to the statements so far made with regard to a number of items. I am certain that the members of the Community regard as essential the Treaty of Rome and the Protocols in their present form. They believe that the common external tariff, as a tariff structure, is essential to them, as well as the abolition of internal tariffs. They believe that the common agricultural policy, as it has been created, is essential, as is economic union and the rules and regulations governing the whole economic life of the Community. As they regard this structure as essential they expect new members to join the Community as it is, with that structure intact. They do not believe that it is justifiable to alter it.
This, again, is fundamental to the present Government's position, and their approach. This view is not just the view of the French Government; it is also the view of the Five, and of the Commission in Brussels. Therefore, the first part of the Government's programme—perhaps the Prime Minister does not wish to do it now—after his visits, if he still wishes to go ahead, should be to announce that the Government accept these features of the Community and are prepared to work with a Community of this nature.
The Prime Minister mentioned the creation of a technological community. I fully accept that we have much to


contribute technologically, but Signor Fanfani and others have already put forward a similar proposal for N.A.T.O., and this is welcome. But we must recognise that we are now in a state in which the Six are prepared to fuse the Executives of the existing three Communities. It is, therefore, unlikely that they will wish to create a fourth community of the kind that the Prime Minister has put forward.
The position taken up by the Foreign Secretary—that if the Government accept the basic nature of the Community they are giving away a negotiating position—is a false one, for the reason that I have tried to explain. If anybody is going to join the Community he must accept it as it is. It is not a question of bargaining in the market and saying, "Will you alter this?", or, "If we give up asking you to alter this we expect something in return". The plain and hard fact is that negotiations do not begin unless we accept the nature of the Community.
What is more, we ourselves accepted it in the last negotiations. In a graphic phrase in his speech at the Guildhall the Prime Minister said that he was setting out on uncharted seas. In fact, these seas are just about the best charted, in international diplomacy, of any item in the post-war world. What we have to know is how to read the chart. That is the important thing. I hope that the Government will be prepared to look at the question from this point of view. There is nothing to be lost by saying firmly and unequivocally, "We accept this framework and structure of the Community", as we accepted it. Europe will certainly not expect this Government to go back on the position that we reached then.
We accepted the Treaty of Rome unequivocally. We accepted a common tariff, and said, "We are prepared to go straight in at the level which you have got at the moment". That is no longer the position. We accepted, at the beginning of the negotiations, a common agricultural policy—because none of it then existed—but as the negotiations went on, and the common agricultural policy began to take shape, we accepted the common agricultural policy. So that stage was already passed in the last negotiations.
We accepted economic union. We went through all the regulations, and found that there was not one to which we had to ask for exemption. That might not be the case now, but it was the position then.

Mr. J. J. Mendelson: The right hon. Gentleman keeps on saying, "We accepted". Did not he realise at the time that even if General de Gaulle had not introduced his veto at the end there was no majority in this House for what the right hon. Gentleman was negotiating for at that time?

Mr. Heath: That is no doubt a matter of opinion. In my view there was.
I urge the Government to take up this position, and when they have done that to enter into discussions about the very large area which still remains for negotiations. Having taken up a firm and unequivocal position about the Community, their chances on the negotiable part are very much greater than they would be if they question the basic structure of the Community.
What are the paths on which there should be negotiation? There are all the transitional arrangements. I hope that the Government will be realistic about these. The Government know the length of time it took the members of the Community to make their changes, and that it is unlikely that they will be prepared to work on the basis of the treaty when their own time was so much shorter than the treaty. If we are going in they will want us to be a full member, without additional barriers to Britain or the other E.F.T.A. countries, at the earliest possible moment.
On the common agricultural policy, it is necessary to supplement it, and that is a field for negotiation. We supplemented it by the creation of a price review for the Community as a whole. The long-term assurances have been most desirable, in everybody's interest. It is difficult to negotiate a regulation based on the supply-demand position from outside the Community, because we have to convince many people about future forecasts. What is essential is that there should be machinery existing in the Community to adjust for the whole agricultural field, if it becomes necessary, when new members join. This is the important thing—to see that the


machinery is there and can be used to the full and to make all the adjustments which from time to time are required for agriculture.
I return to the question of unanimity of action. In reference to the Luxembourg Agreement, the President of France has stated that this means that all the agricultural regulations, including those relating to prices, can be altered only with unanimity. The Prime Minister and others will know that, very often, the French Government are critical of the present level of prices, but the enforcement of unanimity means that the German Government also have the right to keep prices high so long as they want to do so. I hope that the Government will face this fact frankly as well.
The next thing to negotiate is all the Commonwealth arrangements. I hope that, after his tour of the capitals, the Prime Minister will have not only consultation but personal meetings with Commonwealth representatives and Ministers to discuss these matters. I am sure that he realises the importance of that, and that the Commonwealth arrangements are not only for association—Africa and the West Indies, the very important Asian arrangements negotiated last time, and, of course, the arrangements with Canada, Australia and New Zealand, some transitional and some permanent. In addition, the Government could negotiate about individual tariff items if they want to do so in the common tariff and individual matters of this kind. All these negotiable areas are also governed by the nature of the Community, to which I must return.
The solutions which the Government have to work out must be compatible with that structure; otherwise, they will not be acceptable. I suppose that the classic example to give of this is the matter mentioned by the Prime Minister in his Bristol speech—the free access of foodstuffs from Commonwealth countries. What is the position here? If this were to be requested, it would, of course, mean that foodstuffs coming into this country will exclude foodstuffs coming from the other member countries of the Community because of the difference in price levels, unless, of course, the Community subsidises its own foodstuffs which come to Britain. Obviously, it will not do that. Therefore, there is a fundamental

reason why it is not compatible with the nature of the Community.
The second thing, of course, is that if one country has cheap foodstuffs and the other has foodstuffs at the price level of the other countries—the economic conditions in the Community are not comparable—obviously, the industrial working costs of one would be on a fundamentally cheaper base than the others. This therefore points the reason why such adjustments as the Government want must be compatible with the nature of the Community.
I urge the Government, again, to be realistic about this. In all these negotiations I have no doubt that the Five will welcome the British Government, but I would also tell the right hon. Gentleman that he will find that they will negotiate as hard as they possibly can—rightly and naturally—in the maintenance of their own interest. Let the Prime Minister be under no illusion about that; he must be prepared for it. That will be the second part of the programme.
The third is the one about which Ministers have so far been silent and which, I believe, is the most important part of the programme in this situation. There are further measures to be dealt with, particularly with France. The first is our indebtedness to the International Monetary Fund, of which I believe £300 million to £400 million must be repaid by the end of 1967 and another £300 million by 1970. Second, there is the future operation of the Sterling Area and the future of our balance of payments.
Why are these vital matters? First of all because, under Article 108 of the Treaty, the member countries undertook obligations to each other in the case of balance of payments difficulties. This was, of course, shown in the case of Italy three years ago. These are major obligations and I am certain that we cannot know the future of any negotiations until these matters have been discussed.
The third and fourth topics in this respect are defence and political arrangements. I could not understand the Prime Minister's statement last Thursday, when he said that he did not propose to discuss these four matters during his tour of the capitals. I believe that they are the most essential part of the talks which he will have—absolutely essential and vital.


Most of the answers to the earlier parts—negotiable and non-negotiable—are known already. They are on record in every Chancery of the Six and in the offices of the Commission at Brussels, but these are the all-important matters which must be dealt with.
I therefore ask the right hon. Gentle man to reconsider this matter when planning his tour. He will also have to discuss with them the position of the E.F.T.A. countries and their willingness to negotiate with them and with the neutrals—

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): I should like to clear this up, as the right hon. Gentleman might have misunderstood what I said last week, which may be my fault. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman about the great importance of defence matters and most of all in the French context—of course. As he will remember, as we all know, what I was trying to say in answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Easing-ton (Mr. Shinwell) was that I do not think that it is necessarily accepted by any hon. Member in the House that now, as compared with many views expressed three or four years ago, to join the European Economic Community automatically carries with it the implication that it will become a European defence community—the third stage of what Professor Hallstein called the "three-stage rocket of economics, politics and defence". I am not under-rating in any sense the importance of defence in the bilateral talks during the next three or four months, particularly with France.

Mr. Heath: I am glad to hear that from the right hon. Gentleman and I agree with what he said about the defence communiy. On the E.F.T.A. position, it is important that he should have a very clear view of the attitude of the Six countries and, again in particular, France, towards the member countries of E.F.T.A. and especially the neutrals.
As far as the neutrals are concerned, I would issue this warning—that the Luxembourg Agreement has not removed the problems of sovereignty from the neutrals. It does not take away from them anxieties about neutrality. At the moment, Austria has been negotiating for nearly three years and the treatment

which it is receiving from the Soviet Union is quite firm on this point, and, some of us would think, harsh. The Swiss have similar problems about neutrality, as have the Swedes.
The Government have not so far given the E.F.T.A. countries—the first Secretary refused to give them—the undertaking which we gave, and to which we adhered, that the negotiations would all be completed at the same time. It may be that they are wise to do this from a negotiating point of view, but there should be a clear understanding about the future of the E.F.T.A. countries, our friends and allies.
There is one further difficulty which has now arisen about E.F.T.A., which is that, as we will have a complete free trade area from 1st January, 1967, onwards, if any country goes into the Community on its own, it will have to raise its tariffs against the other E.F.T.A. members. This is of great importance for the member countries of E.F.T.A.
I hope that the Prime Minister will also discuss very frankly—particularly in Paris—the timetable for his present talks and for the future and to inquire and receive a clear answer about when negotiations, if he wishes to proceed, can begin, We sometimes hear, "After the Kennedy Round." Will that be acceptable or will it have to wait until 1st July 1968, when the tariffs and agricultural policy transitional period is over, or will it have to wait until 1st January, 1970, when the agricultural financial regulation and the common agricultural policy is settled?
These two last matters are again of vital importance to the French Government. There was no more complicated or difficult negotiation in the whole of the Brussels episode than the one on the agricultural financial regulation. It is absolutely at the heart of the Community's life, because of agriculture and finance, and there must be a clear understanding about this in the timetable.
The Prime Minister has made it plain that he does not wish to start until the economy is strong. With that, we would agree. He said that sterling must be at least as high as it is now. It was 2·79⅛ on the day that he made his statement, which is not asking a great deal. He will recognise that those studying the economic problem very closely will not be satisfied


simply with a surplus on the balance of payments with a deflationary policy at the same time. That will be limiting their trade with us. What they will want to know is how will the United Kingdom Government maintain the balance of payments when expansion begins in the enonomy. That is the real problem and question with which the Prime Minister will be faced.
I turn now to the political arrangements and defence. Again, these stem from the fact that the Community is much more than a market. After all, the Coal and Steel Community was started for a political purpose—to prevent France and German)' ever going to war again, by bringing closer together those basic industries. Mr. Macmillan, when he made his statement in the House on the opening of negotiations, said that this was a political as well as an economic matter. Those were his opening words to a very substantial part of his statement.
On 10th April, 1962, I made a long, detailed statement about the political arrangements in the Community, if we became a member. We must face the fact that this is a political matter. Where the confusion arises is in the argument whether there is to be a supranational federal superstructure. This is not a matter on which the countries of the Community are agreed, nor on which we necessarily may express a view.
What I would like to do here is to turn to President de Gaulle's position, because he has emphasised quite clearly his view that the Six is a political grouping. At his Press conference on 29th October last, only a few weeks ago, in which he made a considered statement, as he always does at Press conferences, he said—talking about his European policy:
This is the keystone of our European policy, be it in our relations with Germany, our former enemy, or in our efforts for the organisation of an economic and, perhaps one day, a political grouping of the Six.
This is a clear statement, which is only the last in a long line of statements at his Press conferences, that he believes in the political grouping of the Six.
Perhaps I could refer to President de Gaulle's earlier Press conference of 21st February, 1966, when he dealt with the security of the Six. He said:

Taking into account the fact that they are neighbours, their geographical and, consequently, strategic position, their relations with peoples close to them,
whom he specifies,
their combined action in the scientific, technical, cultural and spatial fields, etc. on which the future of mankind depends, these, in our view, are the matters with which the Six must concern themselves.
And the first of those is the security of the Six.
Let us recognise that President de Gaulle's view of the Six, and of European unity based on the Six, includes security, which is defence, and includes the political relationships with the other countries of the world. It is encouraging that he spells out, in the other countries of the world, the developing countries of Africa and Asia, with whom they have been closely associated. It is of vital importance in the talks which the Prime Minister will have that he should discuss with the French Government the whole political arrangements for Europe. Unless that is done I do not believe that a settlement will be reached. This is of vital importance.

Mr. E. Shinwell: Could the hon. Gentleman elucidate a point for me? It has to do with the question of security. Is it not quite clear that what President de Gaulle has in mind, in the context of security, is not to be associated any longer with N.A.T.O.?

Mr. Heath: With great respect to the right hon. Gentleman, I think that it is much more than that, but this is one of the things which has to be found out. No one has yet found this out, and there will not be an answer to the problem of Britain's membership of the Common Market until this is discovered and settled.
After the negotiations in 1963 I said that the reason for the negotiations not being continued was a political decision. This I believe to be right. I went on to say that there was a difference of view about the future political organisation of Europe. There may be two kinds of view about Europe. One was broadly represented by the Five and ourselves and the other by the President of France and the French Government.
Largely as a result of the break up of our own negotiations, the political harmony of Europe has been damaged.


The German-Franco Treaty has not worked in the way in which not only the French and Germans, but many others in Europe, hoped that it would work. As a result, Europe has got neither kind of political unity. It has not got the kind of unity which the Five were wanting and it has not got the kind which President de Gaulle seemed to want. There are now signs of disintegration in Europe which I believe are alarming.
The sort of results which we see in the Hesse elections in the Federal Republic cannot give anyone any comfort or encouragement. We see that there are also signs of disarray in N.A.T.O. These are the problems from which Europe today is suffering. The problem which now faces us is: can European unity be created, can an agreement be reached upon it? This is the big question which faces the Prime Minister in his talks, above all in Paris.
With the developing situation in Germany we may see a closer accord again between France and the Federal Republic. We may see the Franco-German Treaty beginning to work more smoothly at the top level than it has done in the past. This remains to be seen, but, if so, it is a way of moving towards one view of the political Europe which we want to create.
This brings us to the French view of defence. It has been placed on the record very clearly in relation to ourselves. On 29th October, at his Press conference, President de Gaulle said, when talking of our own negotiations:
… the fact is that it"—
that is, Britain—
was not at the time in a position to apply the common rules, …
This is his view and it states very clearly that in future the common rules have to be accepted. He went on to say:
… and it had just declared in Nassau an allegiance that was foreign to a Europe which would really be one.
There cannot be a clearer statement by the President of France about his views of the relations between this country and the United States, and on these questions of defence. This, again, is why it is so important that the Prime Minister should discuss these matters very frankly. From the points of view of the financial position and defence and aircraft supply,

his own Government are more dependent on the United States than was the Government when I was negotiating.
This leads to the point that the Prime Minister really must thrash out this question in Paris to find out what the situation is. I agree that that involves—

The Prime Minister: I apologise to the right hon. Gentleman for intervening again. On my previous visit to President de Gaulle I went into these questions about purchases from America very frankly with him. This is not meant to be a trick question, but I am not quite clear about one thing. We want to know what the right hon. Gentleman feels about this.
Is the right hon. Gentleman now saying that, from his experience, because Britain and the Five took a different view from the French, and because the French intervention was so fundamental—and could again be so—on political and defence matters, he feels that we ought to move closer to the position of France?
Since the right hon. Gentleman mentions Nassau, would it be his position that Nassau now represents an impediment, perhaps a fatal obstacle, to our getting into the Common Market on acceptable terms? It would be useful if he could tell us how he feels that the position has changed since then.

Mr. Heath: I, too, have discussed this very frankly with President de Gaulle and the position that I am putting to the Prime Minister is that no one in the West has yet had a detailed discussion with the President of the France about the sort of defence organisation which would be acceptable to him. That does not necessarily mean that we or anyone else have to accept it, but it is at least a matter which has to be thoroughly explored, in so far as he is willing to do so.
I do not believe, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir A. Douglas-Home) said yesterday, that President de Gaulle wants a defence community in Europe, but I do believe that these discussions involve the question of nuclear power, the relationship between our own nuclear power and that of France and the relationship of this with American nuclear power. This means that these matters cannot be satisfactorily


settled other than through very detailed discussions with the Americans. This, too, is fundamental to the whole position.
The reason I am saying this is that I believe that the whole of the future negotiations are too big to be entered upon this time unless these matters have first been settled. That is why I said that of these three separate matters I believed the second to be infinitely more urgent and important than the others which I have mentioned.
When looking at the size of the negotiations, what I felt most acutely when I was negotiating was that the fate of so many other Governments were involved in addition to that of the British Government. Already, the Governments of the E.F.T.A. countries are having to declare positions at a time which their Prime Ministers may not feel is necessarily the best time to declare them. We have to show an understanding of this from the point of view of the other Governments involved.
I would just say to the Prime Minister that there is sometimes a temptation to think that the Five can bring pressure to bear upon the President of France and that, if we negotiate successfully with the Five, he will not be able to withstand that pressure. I hope that no one is under that illusion now. Nor do I think that anyone should be under the illusion that, if we start negotiations without seeing a successful ending, and they fail, the Five will abandon France. That will not happen, because their interests are too closely bound up together.
Then we have to consider the American position. The last speech of President Johnson about Europe was an encouraging one. I should like to quote from his speech, because he has a very clear view of Europe. He said:
The outlines of the new Europe are clearly discernible. It is a stronger, increasingly united but open Europe—with Great Britain a part of it—and with close ties to America.
That, therefore, is an American approach of a special relationship with Europe based on the Community. That is what the President means and that involves an adjustment in our own relationship with the United States. That is fundamental to the French position, and to the whole European and American position.
I hope that the Government will now frankly discuss this matter. President de Gaulle's position is that we must accept the rules. That is the first thing. Secondly, there must not be what he terms an allegiance foreign to Europe. Thirdly, there will be political developments in which he wants the people who are members of the Six to join. If they are not prepared to join in them, it is unlikely that he will want them to become members of the Community. Finally, I believe that these changes are necessary, not only from the negotiating position but for something which is much more fundamental. It is really what Europe is all about today.
What Europe is about is redressing the balance on the two sides of the Atlantic—redressing the balance in trade, finance, defence and in political influence. What they ask themselves is: is Britain prepared to be a member of a Community which is deliberately setting out to do that, and to accept the changes in its own relationship which are involved? That is the question which they are asking, and it is the question to which this country has to give an answer.
It is happening in trade, in the Kennedy Round. I do not think that the Prime Minister quite meant to say that the Kennedy Round will be one test of the integrity of the Community, because the view which the Community takes is that the time has come to redress the balance of trade between the two sides of the Atlantic. For far too long the prairies, whether of North America or Australasia, have been able to ship their food to Europe, and European agriculture, which has been broken up through systems of land tenure, under-capitalised, under-fertilised and out of date, has been unable to compete with them. They want to see their own agriculture supported, and they take the view that this should be no longer a purely one-way traffic. That is what lies at the bottom of the whole agricultural policy, and we must recognise it. That is what is going on in the Kennedy Round.
In finance, in monetary policy, the whole purpose of French policy is to redress the balance against the two reserve currencies and, in particular, against the dollar. That is not only the French view, because it is supported by


many others in Europe with considerable financial power. This is part of redressing the balance.
Exactly the same applies to defence. It is felt that there should be a European strength in defence so that, as President Kennedy himself put it, there are the two pillars in the Atlantic Alliance, one from Europe and one from the United States. The question is: is the defence policy which the President of France wishes to pursue compatible with that two-pillar approach? That is what has to be found out.
Finally, politically, Europe should be able to exert its political influence in the world as a continent, if possible. This is what Europe is trying to achieve in a very painful and hard way.
This is the reason why I believe in a European policy, because it is desirable and it is for the good of the Western world as a whole that Europe should be developed, should be strengthened, should be more prosperous, and should be a counter-balance to the other side of the Atlantic. This cannot happen at once. But Europe is thinking in those terms, and, unless we show that we are thinking in those terms we shall not be acceptable to the Europe which is developing today.
Some hon. Gentlemen opposite have mentioned the Eastern Socialist States. It may be that, in time, as their economies liberalise, they will come into a closer relationship with the European Community. I do not believe that the movement which we see at the moment is any reason for delaying our own attempts to expand the Community. Some people suggest that it is, in case it interferes with the movement of the Eastern European States. But why are they moving at the moment? They are moving because they have been attracted by the wealth and prosperity of the Community, and the Community is moving towards them with credit terms.
We might at least take credit for the fact that we ourselves did this long before the Community. I made arrangements for very substantial credits to the Soviet Union and the Eastern Socialist countries which the Americans and members of the Community themselves attacked in N.A.T.O. Now they, too, have to move towards this policy, and it shows that

the policy was right, even though we ourselves can no longer do it.
Then, the Community is moving towards the developing countries. I welcome that, because I have always felt that one of the most important aspects of our negotiations was that a closer European unity would be able to help the developing countries of the world more and, in the form of the associated States and the Commonwealth countries, would be able to break down some of the barriers which the European colonial Powers themselves created. In that way, we would wipe out some of the history of the past and create a better future for those people. Those are all aspects of the development of the European Community. Above all, there are the opportunities for our own people to realise their aspirations in a way in which they are not able to at the moment.
To be able to achieve all this would be a splendid prize, and that is why the Prime Minister is right to see whether it can be done. But he will be only able to see if he carries out the programme which I have suggested to him. It will require from him and the Government courage, vision, and a preparedness to thrash out these problems which perhaps on this side of the House we have not always felt were there. If he can produce that, then he will be able to achieve this prize, and I wish him well in the doing.

4.47 p.m.

The First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs (Mr. Michael Stewart): In this debate, we are concerned with an approach by this country and by our E.F.T.A. partners to the European Economic Community. I stress that it is an approach by us and our E.F.T.A. partners. It should not be described, as my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) described it in yesterday's debate, as merely an operation to turn six into seven. At the recent E.F.T.A. Conference at Lisbon, we were reminded that when E.F.T.A. itself was created, it was intended to proceed to a wider integration of Europe. It was apparent, too, at that conference, that our E.F.T.A. partners were anxious that this process should now go ahead, and they regarded this country as the one which must be the pioneer in that process. That is why I am certain that it


was right that this new approach should begin by consultations with the heads of the E.F.T.A. Governments.
The right hon. Member for Bexley (Mr. Heath) questioned my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister's choice of words when he said that this was an approach to be made across uncharted seas. The right hon. Gentleman said that these were the best charted of all seas. But navigators will tell him that there are sometimes changes if one's chart is not up to date. He will recognise that, since the time when he sailed these seas, some of the currents have changed, some of the rocks have changed their positions and the navigator now passes by the wreck of a previous enterprise which was not there when the right hon. Gentleman embarked on the voyage. He himself showed that he was aware of that in the section of his speech—and a most important section it was—in which he set out what he believed were the matters which my right hon. Friends must discuss when they visit the capitals of the Six countries.
It was a wide-ranging list—E.F.T.A., defence and sterling. The Government recognise that these are certainly matters that must be discussed, but I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will agree that this debate is not the time or place to give the answers to all the questions he raised. They must be answered elsewhere because, for example, when describing what he believed to be the French Government's position on defence, he said that it did not follow that one must necessarily accept that position, and he urged that further examination was necessary to find out exactly what it was, and how it was compatible with the views of others about the security of Western Europe.
He will agree that here is certainly a part of the sea that is still uncharted, and the furthest we can get in this debate is that the Government should be reminded by hon. Members of all the considerations we must take into account, and that the Government should satisfy the House that they are aware of the relevance of these issues to the whole problem. We could not take, and I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman would not expect us to take, the further step of trying to outline now what our answers might be to questions which may be put

to my right hon. Friends on these and other matters.
While one must accept that the European Economic Community—like the right hon. Gentleman I prefer that phrase to describe it—has aspects and aspirations beyond those of economics, it is in the first instance an economic community and it is with that aspect, in view of the office I now hold, that I shall particularly deal today, though not exclusively. When one examines economic aspects, one must say straightaway that the adherence of this country to the European Economic Community, whenever it occurs, is bound to impose considerable problems and strains on our economy. One may in almost all things reverse the familiar proverb and say that there is no wind so good that it does not blow somebody some ill.
There is no change so beneficial that it does not create anxieties and difficulties for someone, and it is important that we should be aware of that at the outset. For example, there is no doubt that the Community's agricultural policy creates considerable problems and strains for us. Its impact on different sections of our agriculture would vary very greatly from section to section, creating difficulties for some and greater opportunities for others. For the country as a whole, it would undoubtedly impose a balance of payments problem, and this matter was raised by the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home) yesterday.
The right hon. Member for Bexley and other speakers have pressed the question of acceptance of the agricultural policy, and the right hon. Gentleman laid great emphasis on the need to accept, as he put it, the basic structure of the Community. I would not dispute that one could not approach the Community saying that as a condition of entry one desired that its basic structure should be altered. But one must examine this question a little more narrowly than the use of a phrase like "the basic structure" implies. For example, on the question of the Community's agricultural policy, it will be within the recollection of the House that when the French Foreign Minister, M. Couve de Murville, was here, he said in a public statement that he thought that there were two ways in which the problem of British entry and the agricultural policy might be dealt with. One was by adaptations of that policy, and one was by


transitional arrangements. He made it clear that his own undoubted preference was the second way, but he did not rule out either.
It is exactly on this point that it would clearly be unsuitable to try to argue out here what length of transitional period one thinks about, and what exact connotation one gives to the word "adaptations". These are exactly the things that must be made clearer during the process of probing which my right hon. Friends will be carrying out, and if all goes well with that, in the process of negotiation later.
The right hon. Gentleman was very anxious that we should not go in with the delusion that the Six would be prepared to make vast rearrangements of the whole structure of the Community on our account. Neither should we go in with too low a view of how far they are prepared to go to meet us. That could be almost as great an error as that against which the right hon. Gentleman warned us.
The right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire asked yesterday if I could give a quantitative assessment of the effect on our balance of payments of entry into the Common Market. He has explained to me that unfortunately it is impossible for him to be here today. In answer to his question I do not propose to go any further in figures than to repeat the figure given by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister that the impact of the agricultural policy on our balance of payments might be from £175 million to £250 million. But the moment a figure of that kind has been mentioned one must notice how many qualifications there are to it.
What will prove to be the figure in the end must depend on the date of our entry, the nature of any adaptations that may be arranged, the length of a transitional period, and world and Community prices at that time. Similar considerations arise every time one tries to express in figures what the result of entry might be. I do not believe that this is a profitable road to tread, at any rate at this stage. We shall certainly have a clearer idea later in the day of what the right figures might be, and we shall have that clearer idea in time for judgment. But it would prejudice the whole

process if we tried to go into precision where precision is not to be obtained.

Mr. J. E. B. Hill: In his estimate of the agricultural effect on our balance of payments, is the right hon. Gentleman allowing anything for the likely expansion of British agriculture which obviously would show a credit?

Mr. Stewart: Indeed, that is another factor that must be taken into account. But the hon. Gentleman will notice that the figure I gave contained a very wide margin, and it did so for the reasons I have just mentioned, the reason which the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned, and many other factors which will occur to hon. Members.
I was saying that the process of entry involves strains and anxieties, including those about the balance of payments. There is also the fact that the advantage we now enjoy in E.F.T.A. markets must be shared with a wider group of nations in the future if some of our E.F.T.A. partners come in with us. There will be tariffs on imports into this country from Commonwealth countries, there will be a loss of Commonwealth preference, and there will be the effect of our entry on certain Commonwealth countries. As was pointed out by several speakers in the debate yesterday, this is one of the things for which we must seek to provide in the process of probing and later in the process of negotiation.
The right hon. Gentleman did ask whether my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister would be having conversations with Commonwealth Governments on this matter. Certainly. There is, of course, this difference between our E.F.T.A. partners and the Commonwealth countries: that there is the prospect of our E.F.T.A. partners entering with us, and that was an important reason, I think, for beginning the whole process with the conference of E.F.T.A. Heads of Government.
I have stressed—I hope not unduly—those undoubted difficulties that would face this country, because, as I was emphasising, one purpose of the debate is to make it clear to the House that the Government are aware of the difficulties involved and to give hon. Members the opportunity of drawing the Government's attention to all the particular anxieties


that exist. It will be the task of my right hon. Friends, in the probing, in the negotiations, to seek by every means compatible with the basic structure of the Community to minimise those strains and anxieties for us.
Clearly, against those strains and anxieties, one must set the very great opportunities which entry into the European Economic Community would open for our industry, for the people of our country as a whole. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) was dealing with this point yesterday. He admitted that entry into a market of 300 million people, as compared with E.F.T.A.'s 100 million, must undoubtedly be a great opportunity, a great advantage for many of our industries. The right hon. and learned Gentleman argued, of course, that this was not true of all our industries, that the advantage given by a larger market varies much from one industry to another. That is true; but if we look at the kind of industries in this country which are likely to benefit, we find that they are those where science is an outstanding factor, and they are those where growth is most apparent. They are industries with which the prosperity of this country is most closely connected. One could list chemicals, plastics, electronics, synthetic fibres, motor cars, computers.
I noticed that my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Ginsburg) referred to the wool textile industry, to both its anxieties and its opportunities. It was his view that in the judgment of the industry the opportunity for a greater market outweighed the fear of competition. We should notice too that we in this country have been concerned with the economic problem. How does one get firms in an industry to grow to a size which gives maximum efficiency without the danger of monopoly? When we enter a larger market it is possible to conceive of the possibilities of growth without the same danger of growth reaching to the point where the whole market could be monopolised. This problem then becomes somewhat easier of solution in a great community than in a single country.
We should notice, also, that with the greater competitive strength which can come from the better management of an

industry, consequent on the opportunity of a greater market, the advantage is not merely in the opportunities we would have for sales in the countries of a larger European Economic Community alone—it would mean an accession of strength to our industries and increase the prospects of sales in world markets, and any opportunity—I say this mindful of the speech of the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell)—it would increase the opportunities of trade with Eastearn Europe. It is, I am certain, an error to assume that if we enter into closer economic relationship with Western Europe that it will of necessity, create a barrier between us and the other half of the Continent. In this matter of trade it will actually put our industries in a position where the opportunity of trade, both in Eastern Europe and in the world as a whole, is greater.
I should also refer to a point made by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in winding up yesterday, that in technological knowledge this country is well in advance of the countries of the Common Market. This was a matter referred to recently by the Vice-President of the Commission in a speech to the European Parliament. Although we have this advantage in the field of knowledge, it is still difficult for us to find sufficient scope for the application of that knowledge. One of the opportunities created by entry into the Common Market would give us that possibility of applying the exceptional degree of knowledge which we have in this field.
I have used throughout the phrase "opportunity", because we must be clear that entry into the European Economic Community will give our industries the opportunity of greater efficiency and the opportunity of a larger market. The beneficial results do not follow automatically from entry. Entry creates the opportunity for those who have the determination to seize it.
One of the purposes of the Committee which I shall chair to keep in touch with both sides of industry on the problems which have to be considered during the process of probing will be to endeavour to assess more exactly what steps can be taken by industry to see that if this opportunity comes to us it is not thrown away.
Many speakers have rejected the idea that going into the European Economic Community is the way to solve our economic problems. It is right to reject that idea, because we have to solve those problems by our own efforts, anyway. That process will be a difficult one, requiring both exertion and discipline by us, but if we can achieve entry into the European Economic Community the reward for those efforts, the reward for that self-discipline, will be much more increased. That, I believe, is the real relationship between entry into the Community and the problem of our own economy.
I have said that there are anxieties about our entry. However, the House should notice that for every anxiety and difficulty which may arise if we enter the European Economic Community, there is the companion question to be asked: what anxieties are there, what troubles may we face, if months and years go by and we still remain outside, and Western Europe still remains divided? The argument is not complete until that question has been asked. Some hon. Members like the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Hertfordshire, East, who stressed the difficulties and problems of going in, have not sufficiently asked this companion question: what is our position, if years go by and we still remain outside a great and powerful Community—becoming possibly more cohesive, and more powerful competitively—and if, during those years, because we remained outside, our E.F.T.A. partners become increasingly impatient, remembering that they themselves believe E.F.T.A. to be the prelude of a wider European integration? What happens, also, if the tendency noticeable among some Commonwealth countries to make their own approaches to the Community becomes more widespread while we stand outside? Anyone who is anxious about the consequences of going in must also be anxious about these questions.
I have spoken of an economic community, and there have been many references to the possible political future of the Community. Frankly, I do not believe that any of us at this stage can make much in the way of worth-while prophecy of what the form of tuture

political relationships between the countries of the Community may be, but here, again, I think that it would be more to the advantage of this country to be inside, playing a part in the development, whatever it may be, than for that development to proceed independently of us and with ourselves able to exercise no influence upon it.
We must think of entry not only as something that imposes certain requirements upon us but as something that gives us an opportunity to influence future policy, for if it be true, as the right hon. Gentleman said, that there is a basic structure to the Community, it is also true, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury said, that the Community has been in what he described as a process of almost continuous negotiation. That must, indeed, be so as every new change in the economic sphere produces new problems for the Six to solve.
Are we to be in a position to take a part in the future formulation of policy? That, I think, is what is meant by the right hon. Gentleman's phrase "a pooling of sovereignty". I accept this phrase. It is something that we are already used to on a small scale. To some extent, every treaty we sign limits our right to handle our own affairs as though they were our own affairs and no one else's. It is true, of course, that some treaties impose very limited obligations, or obligations that can be altered or renounced after a period.
What we are now considering is a very much greater pooling of sovereignty than before. The right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East sought to alarm us by pointing out the many matters on which the Community might make regulations, but let us take certain matters which are under discussion and on which Community decisions may be made—patents, insurance and industrial standards. It is true that if, at some future date, we are a member of the Community, any regulations made on these matters in the Community will be binding on us, but what will be the position if time goes by and these important matters are settled by a great bloc of European countries, with us outside, in a manner in which we have no say and over which he have no influence? The ill effects of that on our trade, commerce and industry might be very much more onerous than any restrictions that might be imposed by the


legal, formal membership of the Community, and all that it implies.
This, I think, in this whole question of sovereignty, is what we have to bear in mind. Do not let us imagine that independence of action can be secured by nominal sovereignty and separateness and independence alone. The degree of independence a country enjoys in all its economic policy is, in the main, determined by the facts. A great trading nation like ourselves cannot behave as though it were completely independent in the ordering of its economy. It is obliged to pay attention to what is happening elsewhere, and to what is decided elsewhere. It does not lie on our power to argue with that, because that is a fact. What does lie in our power is to determine how we shall come to terms with this fact that faces any great trading nation.
We can seek to come to terms with it by standing alone, by being aloof from the growth, notonly in Western Europe but elsewhere in the world of great united communities. I am not one of those who say that it would be impossible—if, despite all our efforts, we were unsuccessful—for the British people to continue to manage their affairs aloof from a greater community, but I do say that the attempt to do that would mean that the solid facts would impose on us and on our freedom of action restrictions heavier than any likely to be imposed by memberships of the Community. That is the choice we have to make. The prospect of being completely independent in fact as well as in law is not open to us or to any nation that hopes to make its living by international trade.
A number of my hon. Friends have been particularly concerned in this debate that economic and social policies we desire should not be restricted by membership of the Community. If we look at Articles 2 and 104 of the Treaty of Rome, we find set out objectives that are very familiar to us. There is the desire to maintain a high level of employment consistently with stability of prices. There is the desire to plan a continually rising standard of life. As to the process of economic planning, the experience of countries already in the Community shows that this concept is not inconsistent with membership of the Community. There are instances where certain particular methods or instruments of planning cannot

be employed consistently with the rules of the Community, but the concept of planning itself is by no means inconsistent.
At one time the question was raised whether public ownership of great industries is consistent with membership of the Community, but one has only to look at the Community as it now stands to see that there is nothing inconsistent there. It is an interesting fact that when the present Government's plans for the steel industry are carried through, the resulting legal position will be a good deal more compatible with the Treaty of Rome than is the present arrangement of the steel industry. If one attempted, with the steel industry under its present set-up, to enter the Community, it would be necessary so to reduce the powers of the Iron and Steel Board that it might as well not exist. I therefore do not think that on this score of public ownership there need be any anxieties.
I suggested earlier in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Renée Short) that there is no reason to suppose that the bringing together of the two parts of Western Europe is in itself a barrier to a better understanding and a greater volume of trade between Eastern and Western Europe. Here, again, it does not automatically follow that the bringing together of the two parts of Western Europe would lead us to greater trade or better relations with the Eastern Europe, but it certainly imposes no barrier, and it certainly provides the opportunity for these improvements. It will be for the wisdom of statesmen to see that those opportunities are used.
In an intervention nearly at the end of yesterday's debate, my right hon. Friend the Member for Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire (Mr. Woodburn) hoped that we would not consider this matter too narrowly in terms of what is of economic advantage to this country. He said that there should be something further and nobler than simply being "on the make" in this matter. With that I heartily agree, even if, in view of my office, I must concentrate mainly on economic topics.
To my right hon. Friend the Member for East Stirlingshire I say two things. First, greater wealth brings the opportunity for greater generosity. It brings only the


opportunity, but without the opportunity—without the resources—we cannot be as generous as we would wish to be towards the poorer sections of mankind. To try to create a greater community which will bring us greater material wealth need not be an ignoble aim in a world in which so many millions of people still live side by side with poverty and famine. I trust that if the venture on which we are now embarked is successful—if it results over the years in greater wealth for Western Europe—the obligations of greater wealth will not be forgotten.
Secondly, we must certainly accept that while the Community is, in the first instance, an Economic Community, the mere membership of it—the formulation and observance of rules on economic matters for the common good—is bound to breed among the nations concerned a greater depth of understanding and a greater exchange of ideas in every sphere of human knowledge.
If one looks at the wide range of topics now discussed at the Council of Europe, one realises that there is bound to be a greater approach to common understanding on these matters. This is inevitable in the process of history because, despite their many wars and conflicts with each other, the nations of Europe still have a great deal in common. Ever since the dismemberment of Europe with the fall of the Roman Empire, the nations of Europe have been fumbling in one way or another to try to get greater unity among themselves. If there is any lesson we can discover from history, it is that if the solid facts require a change of some kind to be carried out, and if the right way of carrying it out is not found, then evil, violent and ugly ways of carrying it out will emerge and various ways have been tried; the grandoise, fantastic structure of the Roman Empire, the harsh militarism of Napoleon and the appalling cruelties of Hitler.
We, our E.F.T.A. partners, the countries of the Community, now have the opportunity of finding a way, less grandiose and less spectacular, but more practical and humane, of achieving greater unity, which might include, in time, the possibility of an approach to and better understanding with Eastern Europe.

5.24 p.m.

Mr. R. H. Turton: Yesterday, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) gave his views on the constitutional and political aspects of Thursday's announcement by the Prime Minister. As I agree and endorse every word he said, I will restrict my remarks to the economic aspects, although I am tempted to deal with the despairing passage in the First Secretary's speech when he said that Britain had no hope unless we joined in the political union of Europe.

Mr. M. Stewart: The right hon. Gentleman must not misrepresent me. I was careful to say that I did not believe that it would be impossible for us to stand alone. I said that there would be great difficulties and that our freedom of action would be restricted. However. I did not say that it would be impossible, or that there would be no hope.

Mr. Turton: I had to give way to the right hon. Gentleman, but, since many hon. Members wish to take part in the debate, the fewer interventions there are the better.
Looking back to previous debates, when the present Prime Minister made certain observations on the economic argument I found myself in a great deal of agreement with him. But that was in the past. I therefore ask the Prime Minister to deal, when he replies tonight, with certain points which have disturbed me about what appears to be a change of view and policy on his part between 1961 and 1966.
For example, I begin with the right hon. Gentleman's observations made in the debate in August, 1961, when he said:
The Common Market, whether we are inside or outside, is restrictive in intent".
Is that the right hon. Gentleman's view today? He went on:
… if joining the Common Market means a reduced ability to trade with the Soviet Union or other Eastern European countries, or China, I submit that this will be detrimental to our economic welfare and to the prospects of full employment…"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd August, 1961; Vol. 645, c. 1665.]
It is no wonder that the hon. Lady the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Renée Short) feels some consternation at what appears to have been a complete change of opinion on the part of the present Prime Minister.
But surely that is dealing only with exports to those countries, which last year, amounted to £141 million. I am deeply concerned about what effect joining will have on our exports to the Commonwealth, the sterling area and the United States, which, last year, amounted to £2,404 million. If the present Prime Minister thought, in 1961, that the effect of joining, owing to the restrictionist character of the Community, would endanger employment as a result of lack of trading with Eastern Europe, what will the effect be if we are shut out from exporting to this wider area outside Europe?
Certainly, times and views have changed since 1961. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, in an extremely able speech, explained some of the changes. One of the great changes is that in 1961, rightly or wrongly—I thought wrongly—the then Government were negotiating from a basis of full employment. Any negotiations now will be taking place at a time when unemployment is rising, to the concern of all hon. Members.
There have been great changes in Europe. In 1961, the Community, had strong Governments and they were at the height of their power. Today, there is hardly a Government in West Germany, the Governments of Holland and Belgium are weak and even the Government of France is expecting a general election next year.

The Prime Minister: There is one point on which the right hon. Gentleman should not go unchallenged, although I could challenge much of what he said. It is that he will surely remember, when he refers to unemployment, that the very month in which the negotiations were broken off, in 1963, was the post-war peak for unemployment in Britain. In other words, if one ignores the freeze-up in 1947, it was the highest level that this country had seen since the war. It is, therefore, wrong for the right hon. Gentleman to draw the contrast which he drew.

Mr. Turton: I do not believe that it will be the highest level. What about this coming winter? In any case, I was referring to the negotiations in 1961, at which time the right hon. Gentleman made the speech from which I quoted.
My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition referred to other changes.

A common external tariff is well towards implementation. A common agricultural policy has been worked out after many hours of burning the midnight oil. That is fixed and cannot be changed. This makes the whole pattern of our negotiations and the whole problem of it even harder than before. We should be trying to come into a community of competitive economies at the same time as we were erecting tariff barriers against our former trading partners who have complementary economies.
This country lives a great deal on what we get, not from Europe, but from the countries in the Commonwealth, the sterling area, and North America. Last year, we imported £1,700 million worth of food and drink, principally from the Commonwealth and the sterling area. What is to happen if we erect a common external tariff against them? There will be diversion from the Commonwealth and the sterling area into Europe. The Prime Minister, last week, gave us his estimate of what would be the cost of that diversion to our balance of payments. He put it at £175 million to £250 million, and put it in terms of a rise in the cost of food from 10 to 14 per cent. I believe that these are gross underestimates.
I give the House one example. It has been worked out by the agricultural statisticians that if we put a common external tariff on our imports of feeding-stuffs that in itself will cost £100 million for that one item. But, accepting the Prime Minister's figures and putting the rise in the cost of living, not at 14 per cent. but 12 per cent., that, as the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East mentioned yesterday, means a rise in the cost of living of 25s. a week for every family of four in this country. That will be very hard on those living on fixed incomes and for old-age pensioners trying to scrape a living on under £7 a week.

Mr. Stanley Henig: Mr. Stanley Henig (Lancaster) rose—

Mr. Turton: I hope that the hon. Member, who has been notable in his occasions of rising, will eventually rise successfully to make a speech.
That is the effect on the cost of living. I hope that the Government will make quite clear to the people of this country what will be the effect on our former


trading partners, in particular, Australia and New Zealand.
This is no small matter, quite apart from the matter of sentiment which I, and I know hon. Members on both sides of the House, hold strongly. Our exports to Australia and New Zealand amounted to £400 million last year. The Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand, speaking last Tuesday, said that Australia had plenty to fear from Britain's proposed entry into the European Economic Community and the outcome of the Kennedy Round of tariff cutting negotiation. He went on to say that he had always been sceptical of the outcome of assurances by British Ministers that they would join the Common Market only if Commonwealth interests could be safeguarded.
I interrupted the Foreign Secretary yesterday because I was disturbed that although we are inviting to this country the Heads of Governments of the E.F.T.A. countries, we are consulting with the Commonwealth—as I learned from the First Secretary of State—only after the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary have had their tour of Europe. Surely, in view of our close association with Australia and New Zealand, after we have seen the Heads of Government we should ask the Australian and New Zealand Prime Ministers if they would come.
We are talking about the safeguarding of these interests. What form will the safeguard take? I listened carefully to the First Secretary of State. I hope I have not again got him wrong, but he appeared to be talking merely of transitional arrangements. We ought to be making permanent arrangements in our negotiations for the benefit of both Australia and New Zealand. I hope that the Prime Minister will not forget the words that he used in the House of Commons on 1st August, 1962. He said:
There are two main issues to be dealt with here. The first is the ultimate settlement, the position of Commonwealth imports after 1970".
He went on to say:
We have said repeatedly … that no amount of temporary relief will solve the problem. This is not a problem for some kind of European national assistance board. What matters is the position of Commonwealth trade and Commonwealth imports after 1970, and we shall judge the outcome of the negotiations by what these things look like after 1970

and not by the means of temporary relief that might be introduced between now and 1970."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st August, 1962; Vol. 664, c. 706–7.]
I hope that when he replies tonight the Prime Minister will state quite clearly whether he has changed his view on the question of whether Australia and New Zealand should have temporary or permanent relief.
Let us see where we stand. I agree, and I have always agreed, that Britain can never dissociate herself from Europe. I also agree that Britain requires a larger market for her competitive economy. Both the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Richard Wainwright) yesterday and the First Secretary of State today, said that it is no good those of us who have our doubts speaking without giving some hint of an alternative. I draw the attention of the House to a speech that was made in London on 3rd October by Dr. Danielian, the President of the International Economic Policy Association. He said:
In the years since 1962, the advantages of Great Britain going into the Common Market have always eluded me, particularly from the U.S. point of view, and even from your vantage point.
He went on to say:
We propose … that serious consideration be given to the organisation of an Atlantic Free Trade association among the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and other E.F.T.A. countries expanding … to include Australia and New Zealand….
On 15th October the Washington Post said, in a leading article:
Why not a free trading bloc that in addition to the free North American countries, includes Australia, New Zealand, Japan and, if possible Britain and her fellow members of the European Free Trade Association?
While we are debating this issue in the House of Commons, this week in Montreal the Canadian-American Committee sponsored by the Ford Foundation is considering this very proposal of an open-ended free trade arrangement embracing the United States, Canada, Britain and other E.F.T.A. countries. In that report it is said that they had some doubt whether Britain could be included in this consideration because of the Prime Minister's announcement last Thursday.
What I would like the Prime Minister to do when he replies tonight is to make clear what is Her Majesty's Government's attitude to these proposals and how far


his attempts to enter the Community will preclude some extension of European free trade to the Commonwealth and the Atlantic areas.
The greatness of this country has been built on free trade and preferential trading with the Commonwealth. The whole of our invisible system of exports has been geared to that trade with the Commonwealth and the sterling area. That is how Britain, in the past, has maintained her credit and her balance of payments. Therefore, we are vitally interested in the success of the Kennedy Round in the G.A.T.T. As I see the position, if the Kennedy Round fails we must, as a country, take immediate steps to extend our area of free and preferential trade and not, on the other hand, try to creep into a protectionist community. If the Kennedy Round succeeds, the advantages of going into the Community, which those who disagree with my point of view are advocating, will become minimal.
That is my summing up. What I was struck by in the speech of the hon. Lady the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East was her account of how arguments against the negotiations had not received very much publicity in the country. She talked of brainwashing. I would not use that ugly term, which is rather connected with Eastern Europe. I have always been surprised at the amount of financial effort which has been devoted to promoting the advantages of going into Europe, without putting the other point of view.
The House should be told the facts. I ask the Government to publish a White Paper in the near future setting out clearly, so that the ordinary people of this country can understand it, setting out the relative advantages and disadvantages of Britain entering the Community. I give my warning. I believe that, if Britain goes into the Community under the conditions that I envisage will be offered by the Six, it will do great harm to our economy and that we will take a very long time to recover from it, if we ever do. I believe that the approach of the Prime Minister as demonstrated last Thursday was born out of a sense of desperation or defeatism as a result of the failures of his economic policy, or, if it was not that, was it a sense of political opportunism as a result of the speech of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the

Opposition at Harrogate on 5th November?
I believe that it is badly timed. I believe that until what happens in the Kennedy Round is known the advantages or disadvantages cannot be assessed. Until what will happen in Germany is known, and until what is happening generally on the Continent is fully understood, I believe that it is unwise for Britain to take this step. I believe that this approach shows a lack of appreciation of Britain's rôle in the world and a lamentable failure to seize the opportunities presented by greater links with our partners in the Commonwealth, our partners in the European Free Trade area, and with our allies across the Atlantic.

5.45 p.m.

Mr. E. Shinwell: Usually when I venture to address the House I find myself in disagreement, indeed sometimes in violent disagreement, with the other side of the House. On this occasion I am in disagreement with both sides, with the qualification that my disagreement applies primarily and fundamentally to the Front Bench. If it is any consolation to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, whose absence I understand and who, no doubt, will hear my views at a later stage indirectly, it will in no way diminish my loyalty to the Government.
Governments make mistakes. This is an error of judgment. Moreover, it will not succeed. There are too many difficulties and obstacles in the path. Some of them were indicated by the Leader of the Opposition. Though I frequently am at loggerheads with the Leader of the Opposition, that in no way detracts from my appreciation of a speech with most of which I disagreed but which was one of the best speeches the right hon. Gentleman has ever made. Much as I disagreed with the right hon. Gentleman several years ago when he was engaged in negotiations on the matter of association with the European Economic Community, I never for a moment doubted his sincerity and integrity.
This is a strange debate. It is a very strange affair indeed. There is a variety of oscillations, reservations, qualifications, doubts, queries. There is a good deal of confusion, except in the case of those who are ready to sign on the dotted line and accept the Treaty of


Rome with all its implications—economic, political and defence. Some hon. Members opposite, and some hon. Members on this side, are fanatical and hysterical Europeans. I do not say that in any spirit of rancour. They have been engaged in a vigorous campaign over many months, supported by vast funds not at the disposal of the anti-Common Marketeers. We have not a penny to bless ourselves with; but we have something more valuable; we have a case.
I fully understand the need for concentrating in this debate on as few items as possible, because many of my colleagues and many hon. Members opposite wish to speak. There is one matter to which I wish to refer, and it was mentioned by the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton). I refer to the need to demonstrate adequately, fully, conclusively, so far as practicable, what is involved in association with the E.E.C. Indeed, the Leader of the Opposition pleaded that the public should be made knowledgeable of all that is involved in our association—our proposed association. That is what the right hon. Gentleman said, and I agree with him.
I noted yesterday, when my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary was addressing the House, in a speech which was irreproachable, except in parts, he consoled himself, in spite of all the reservations, qualifications, queries and the like, with the public opinion polls on the subject. He said that a public opinion poll demonstrated that a substantial majority of the people of this country are ready to enter the Common Market.
This morning—I provide it with a gratuitous advertisement—the Daily Telegraph shows the result of the Gallup Poll, and one finds there the question which was addressed to the general public. For the edification of hon. Members, I shall recite it. Everyone wants the facts, and here are the facts. The question was:
If the British Government were to decide that Britain's interests would best be served by joining the European Common Market, would you approve or disapprove?
I make the suggestion, without hope of fee or reward, a suggestion which, no

doubt, Dr. Gallup will take into account, that the question should be phrased rather more adequately.
For example, when a housewife is questioned by one of these expert interrogators on the subject of our entering the Common Market, the interrogator might mention that it is not at all unlikely—I am fortified by the Prime Minister's statement and by many others on this—that the price of food will go up. [An HON. MEMBER: "Fourteen per cent."] Who can tell?—12½ per cent. or 15 per cent.—but it will go up in our association with the Common Market. I should like to hear what the housewife would say to that.
I can imagine the interrogator going to a market town on market day and asking the farmers whether they are prepared to associate with the E.E.C. and mentioning, in passing, in a somewhat subdued tone of voice, of course, that our agricultural system will have to be completely reorientated. I hope that that is the correct description. Some farmers use another term. I should like to hear what the farmers would say to that.
In searching for an adequate answer to the question, "Should we associate with the Common Market?", the interrogator might address himself to some of the many unemployed in the Midlands of Britain. I am not raising a political issue here or in any way condemning the Government. I merely mention it in passing as an illustration. If some of the unemployed were asked, "Are you prepared to enter the Common Market", and they were then told that there was to be free movement of labour, which, presumably, means that unemployed workers in Italy or elsewhere on the Continent could enter this country without any restriction, although, on the other hand, Commonwealth subjects cannot enter without restriction and even Australians have to seek a work permit, I wonder what their answer would be.
Some of my Left-wing friends—I mean no offence—are anxious to go in, ignoring the rigidity, the tightness and the discipline of the E.E.C. to which the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition referred today. Do they understand that there would be no question of abstention? Let it be noted that above the portals of the E.E.C. there is inscribed, "Abstainers abandon hope".


I could pursue this matter at great length, but I forbear except to say that the public are entitled to be told what this involves. Even the intellectuals on this side of the House, for whom I have great regard and who have taught me a great deal since I left school at the age of 11, might use the opportunity to inform their constituents at the wayside and on the doorstep what association with the E.E.C. really involves. Let them state the facts and not be coy about it.
I come now to the question of the political objective. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has returned to his place. Perhaps I may tell him that I reminded the House earlier that he could console himself with the knowledge that, although I disagree with what I regard as an error of judgment on this occasion, he has my full support on every other subject. But the other day, when I ventured to suggest that we should have an assurance that, if we entered the Common Market or engaged in negotiation with de Gaulle or anyone else on the Continent associated with the European Economic Community, there would be no question of proceeding any further than an economic arrangement, an arrangement on trade, tariffs or what have you, and that we would not proceed in the direction of a supranational Government and a European Parliament, my right hon. Friend said that that never was contemplated. I remember what he said, and it is in HANSARD. I have no notes with me to fortify my contention, but reference can be made to it. My right hon. Friend said that it never was contemplated and it is not contemplated in these negotiations.
The House heard what the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition said today—

ROYAL ASSENT

6.0 p.m.

Message to attend the Lords Commissioners:

The House went:—and, having returned;

Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to:

1. Family Provision Act, 1966.
2. Veterinary Surgeons Act, 1966.

3. Barbados Independence Act, 1966.
4. Sea Fisheries Regulation Act, 1966.

EUROPE

Question again proposed, That this House do now adjourn.

Mr. Shinwell: It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, with great respect, that if anything has justified the abolition of the House of Lords it was that interruption.
Of course, there is just a possibility that if there were a supranational government with a European Parliament, that would put an end to it. But even that does not afford any attraction for me. Right in the middle of the speech we have had half time, and no one even offered us a drink. I am very much tempted to start right from the beginning again, but the trouble is that I have no notes—I always find them an encumbrance—and I might get a little confused.
There are two other matters to which I must refer. The first is the main subject of the debate. While I fundamentally disagreed with the first part of the speech of the Leader of the Opposition about going in hook, line and sinker and lock, stock and barrel, I agreed very much with the latter part when he pointed out all the difficulties and particularly the difficulties about defence.
I have some experience of this subject and particularly of negotiating with the French. I had to negotiate with the French when I was Minister of Defence, with Pleven, when he was Prime Minister, with Jules Moch, when he was Minister of Defence, and with Réné Meyer, when he was Minister of Defence and the whole of the N.A.T.O. infrastructure was arrived at in consequence of the discussions which I had with Réné Meyer several years ago. Incidentally, the French agreed to the infrastructure, but have now abandoned N.A.T.O. I do not know whether we should have any compensation as a result, but that topic is incidental to the debate and I shall not pursue it.
As I have said in the House in defence debates, right from the end of the war the French have never made a worthwhile contribution, in forces or in finance, to N.A.T.O. They have always put


obstacles in the way and I suggest that there will be further obstacles. Of course, my right hon. Friend must have more discussions with de Gaulle, who is really the villain of the piece. It was de Gaulle who placed an impediment in the path of the right hon. Member for Bexley (Mr. Heath). Had it not been for the de Gaulle veto, the right hon. Gentleman might have succeeded.
Now it is a question of defence. Entry might have been easier during the régime of the right hon. Member for Bexley, because France was then associated with N.A.T.O., at any rate in theory and on paper. I shall not go into all the complications associated with defence in Europe and our association with the United States, and with the complications which arise because Germany is divided, although I will say, in passing, that if there is any question of creating a defence community emerging as the result of the Economic Community in Europe, the fact that Germany is divided—unless there is reunification—will leave a festering sore which could easily create conflict. In those circumstances, the Economic Community would be of little value.
I therefore agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the Prime Minister must address himself to the subject of defence in association with the French. I am an anxious as my pacifist hon. Friends on this side of the House, and no doubt others elsewhere, who, I am convinced, have genuine convictions and who want to put an end to war and who want no more conflict, to see an arrangement among the nations of the world, or at any rate a group of nations, to prevent conflict. But I am convinced that, without the military aid in weapons and in manpower and in finance which the United States can provide, this country has no security.
I regret it and I wish that it were otherwise, but we have gone through two great devastating wars and in both we have depended in the long run, although not at the beginning, when we had the courage and the conviction to enter into war, largely unprepared but with the courage which one expects from the British, on the aid provided by the United States. All the defence organisations which can be created and all the mechanism associated with defence in Europe would be of little avail unless we could rely in

large measure on the assistance provided by the United States, and the Prime Minister must tell de Gaulle that.
Whether de Gaulle will change his mind in time I am unable to say. I very much doubt it. When people get old it is very difficult for them to change their minds. [Laughter.] I beg hon. Members to understand that I am very far from being obstinate or perverse. I have a chameleon's capacity for adaptation. I have been accused of changing my mind frequently. I have not changed my mind on this subject. It therefore seems to me that the right hon. Gentleman was right and that de Gaulle is the obstacle, but I very much doubt whether we can achieve success.
When de Gaulle goes, we may have Pompidou. I never care very much for French politicians. I knew them all in the old days—Briand, Daladier, Jean Longuet and all the rest of them. Recently, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) described himself as an internationalist, but I attended conferences with these gentlemen before the First World War and before my hon. Friend saw the light of day. Now I sometimes wonder whether he can see daylight.
I want now to deal with my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Ginsburg), who said yesterday that we need not bother about our economic position because the situation on the Continent was far worse. He gave us the statistics. I heard him yesterday and I had a refresher course this morning in HANSARD. He said that there were many difficulties on the Continent where exports were not as great as they were here and where there were labour difficulties.

Mr. David Ginsburg: Mr. David Ginsburg (Dewsbury) indicated assent.

Mr. Shinwell: My hon. Friend is nodding assent. I suggest to him that if that is the case, then, obviously, the right thing to do is not for us to join E.E.C., but for E.E.C. to join us.
I do not like denigration of this country. I do not believe in crying stinking fish. There is much wrong in this country. There are the slums; we have insufficient hospitals; transport facilities are antiquated. We know all this. Our purpose is to try to put these matters


right. Incidentally, that is what I thought this Government was for. That is what I expected this Government to do, not to waste its time on a will o' the wisp. Of course, there is much which requires to be done in the social services, but for goodness sake let us stop denigrating our own country. It is still a good country. If we never get into the Common Market, we can pull ourselves up by our boot straps. This is a challenge to the people. Tell the country the truth. Demand from the people that they should render adequate service. What is wrong with that?
It is not treason to praise one's own country. Perhaps I should be careful about this. Although I was born in this country 82 years ago—it is quite a long time ago—and not very far from here, within the sound of Bow Bells, my ancestors came from elsewhere. But I love this country. I know of no better country, and I have travelled the world. I beg hon. Members not to treat this as hyperbole; I mean what I say.
I am an unrepentant, determined, resolute opponent of our going into the Common Market. I have no reservations. I am not half-hearted or chicken-hearted about it. I do not say, "If we can get this or that we might go in. Perhaps it will work out this way or that way and then everything in the garden will be lovely". Not at all, Mr. Speaker. I have not heard a single argument in this debate, nor do I expect to hear one at the end of the debate, which convinces me that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, for whom I have the utmost regard and respect, will succeed in converting de Gaulle or taking us into Europe.
May I indulge in a last word since I understand that there has been some private criticism of my attitude in the past? It has been suggested that in the past I supported entry into a European community. Therefore, yesterday, I went to the Library. If anybody imagines that the Library cannot provide adequate facilities for research he is mistaken. The staff there found for me an early-day Motion dated 26th November, 1951, and an early-day Motion dated 18th December, 1952.
An alternative to going into the Common Market has been demanded. I do not doubt that we can find one. After

all, it might be said that this country, on its economic feet, is the alternative. But, when we are asked for an alternative, I read out these early day Motions, none of which I signed, but which were signed by some hon. Members on this side of the House; I will not mention their names. I should like to read them for the benefit of hon. Members. I ask the House and the public to note them.
The first Motion reads:
Commonwealth and European Union: That this House, anxious for the future peace and prosperity of the world, calls upon His Majesty's Government to make an immediate declaration of its intention to work for a more closely co-ordinated development of the Commonwealth and Empire, while fully supporting the early creation of a Union of European States; to strive for a close and cordial partnership between these two groups of freely united nations; and to undertake that in any discussions or negotiations with friendly or unfriendly foreign Powers it will clearly state its firm intention of using the diplomatic, political, economic and cultural resources of this new association for the promotion of peace and understanding in the world to the economic advancement of all peoples.
That was signed by a body of Labour Members. It is consistent with the statement made by the Prime Minister at the Guildhall banquet, when he said, "We do not want a little England." Who wants a little England? He also said, "We do not want a little Europe; we want something wider." My right hon. Friend is looking further afield. That is what he wants—not something circumscribed, too tight, too rigid, too claustrophobic. He wants to bring in other countries.
The other Motion, which is much shorter, reads:
European Political Authority: That this House welcomes the decision of the six Western European nations to consider the framing of a European Political Authority and hopes that this will develop into a European federation; believes that the Council of Europe"—
to which my comrades and I perambulate now and again—
… should then be enlarged so that the European Federation, the Commonwealth of Nations and the United States of America shall each be there corporately represented; and further hopes that out of such, a new council may ultimately develop a supranational political authority with limited but real legislative powers.
That is better. That is what I hope for. If we cannot have world government, let us have regional government. But do


not let us confine ourselves to the few countries in Europe.
Because I hold these views, because I do not want a little England or a little Europe, and because I want peace and prosperity for all the countries of the world, I say to my right hon. Friends that I am afraid that this approach will be unsuccessful, and that I regard it as an error of judgment.

6.27 p.m.

Mr. Douglas Dodds-Parker: I have been for many years a great admirer of the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell). He was a patriotic and effective Minister of Defence. Before that he was a good and discriminating Secretary of State for War; he demobilised me. There is only one point on which I would take strong exception to his views, and that is when he says that we should not aim at a wider movement of labour in Europe, because, as the right hon. Gentleman said, without such a movement in the past we might well have been deprived of his company in this country for the last 82 years.
I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not mind my recalling a speech which he made in 1959 at an Inter-Parliamentary Union meeting in Warsaw. We have listened to hundreds of his speeches, but the speech which he made on that occasion made a very great impact on that meeting as well as on me. In fact, those present still talk about it. As I remember it, he spoke as a good Briton and a good European. I think that he made an impact oh the representatives of those countries of Eastern Europe as a European born and brought up in this country. I hoped and believed that that would make him on an occasion like this come out on our side in advocating a closer association with Europe.
I do not believe, as time goes on, that the objectives of the Early Day Motions which the right hon. Gentleman read are eliminated by the discussion we are having today. Because we want an immediate or early step to be made to associate Europe more closely together, that does not mean that we do not want to go beyond, to the two pillars which President Kennedy and others have supported—of North America and Europe.

I am not going to take up much of the time of the House. All I want to do is to pick up and underline one or two points after the comprehensive speeches from the Front Benches during the last two days.
There is one point which I should like to follow in the full and comprehensive speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexley (Mr. Heath). The speeches from the Opposition benches today are full of the experience of the negotiations of five or six years ago. Right hon. Gentlemen speaking from the Front Bench opposite are, rightly, somewhat diffident about going too far at the moment. They will be charged with the negotiations, and, quite properly in my view, they must not go too far at this moment.
One thing my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexley achieved in his comprehensive negotiations six years ago—probably the most massive negotiations which have ever been carried on—was an educational process far beyond Europe and the Commonwealth. It started many people thinking of where we were going. The process which started then has continued during the last four or five years, and has produced a quite different climate of opinion, not only in Western Europe, but in the United States, in the Commonwealth, and in other countries beyond.
I hope that when the Prime Minister winds up this debate he will find himself able to be as enthusiastic in his approach to the European ideal as I believe the Foreign Secretary was in his speech yesterday, and as he has shown in other speeches outside the House, and as my right hon. Friends the Members for Bexley and Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home) are known to be.
If one is to join a club, one must appear to be, and be known to be, keen on joining it, and it is this psychological approach which we want to stress today. All those who have worked for closer European association during the last ten, twenty, or thirty years, realise that this is an important debate, because the temper of the House, and the speeches which are made, will be read all over Europe and far beyond. I hope that those who study our debates will realise that this is not a party issue. It is an issue which goes beyond party.
When I listened to the Prime Minister last Thursday, and studied his words afterwards, I came to the conclusion that he accepts the Treaty of Rome as the basis for our negotiations, and, always allowing for the fact that he has to enter into negotiations, I hope that he can be more specific on that vitally important point than he speaks this evening.
All those who have been to Europe since 1963 in particular realise how much affairs have changed, particularly during the last couple of years. I believe that both E.F.T.A. and the Community have succeeded far beyond the expectations of those who established them five or more years ago; and I believe that with the ending of industrial tariffs by E.F.T.A. at the end of this year the moment has come to consolidate the two. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys) said, we must keep the momentum and the pace of the consolidation of Europe going.
It is worth recalling to the House the resolution proposed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham at Strasbourg last January, and voted for by 84 frustrated members of European legislatures, against 11—these 11 including the majority of the French present, but not all the French, and four or five Swiss and Swedish neutrals, which is an altitude of mind one understands.
I think that that vote showed an overwhelming determination by the elected representatives of most of the Western European countries to go ahead with closer association and to call on their Governments to get on with the job. I do not think that the significance of this resolution has been sufficiently recognised in this country or outside Strasbourg, but the Commission regard it as an important document, and as a signpost to the way that the overwhelming majority of the elected representatives of Europe wish to go. Anybody who has studied that resolution and been to the meetings of E.F.T.A. Parliamentarians, which take place at regular intervals, realises that they wish the United Kingdom to lead them into the Community. This is certainly the impression which I have received from the elected representatives of our E.F.T.A. partners, always of course with adequate

transitional periods for necessary adjustments.
Bridge building about which we used to hear so much in the past is obviously no longer a consideration. What most of them want, I believe, is full membership of the Community, accepting the policies of the Community as they now stand. I think that this must include agriculture, and I should like briefly to make two points on that.
First, with the coming world food shortage, which has been inadequately recognised outside certain areas such as the Presidency of the U.S.A. and O.E.C.D., Europe must prepare itself to produce the maximum amount of food. She cannot count on drawing on stocks of low cost food from other parts of the world.
Secondly, the importance of the New Zealand problem has lessened to the extent that New Zealand is making inroads commercially in Western European markets. The coming food shortage will have an important effect and I believe that our agriculture—having once represented an agricultural constituency—is second to none in the world, and given proper encouragement can produce considerably more food without, as some people allege, a great increase in cost to the community.
I have referred to "the Community as it now stands". Obviously it will evolve. Senator Fulbright at Strasbourg last year said that if anybody thinks that the problem will come to an end with the uniting of Europe, he should go to Washington and see what goes on there. This must be an evolving community after we get E.F.T.A. and the Six together.
Many hon. Members on both sides of the House have had the advantage of visiting the Community in Brussels and Luxembourg in recent months. I think that one has learnt a great deal from there. The officials are outward-looking, and they are studying many problems—for instance of oligopoly (which is a new word as far as I am concerned)—in a very open-minded way. I follow in aim, if not in method, the hon. Lady the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Renée Short) in looking beyond Western Europe to the countries of Eastern Europe with which I have had a close association for many years, and which I visit whenever I can. These great historic countries


of Eastern Europe must come into the association with Western Europe before our task is fully accomplished. I hope and pray that it will happen in my lifetime, but, if it does not, the step that we are discussing today is a step towards an association with them in freedom and in friendship, and I, too, include in this an association with Spain—I think that the present regrettable difficulties over Gibraltar must one day pale into insignificance—when we see what Spain as a country and Britain and Europe have to give one another.
I, too, look beyond the immediate economic advantages, in which I do not seek to add up exactly whether we are going to gain or to give most, to a greater ideal beyond the economic. I have always looked beyond the economic to a political association of the countries of Western Europe, if for one reason alone. I believe that if the Community had existed as it does today, and even more as the one at which we are aiming, we would have avoided the Second World War and might have avoided the First. For this political reason alone I believe that it is vitally important that we should press on and associate ourselves more closely with it.

Mr. John Lee: Are there any irreducible minima of British interests which the hon. Gentleman feels ought not to be bargained away, even allowing for the full weight of his enthusiasm for our joining the Community?

Mr. Dodds-Parker: I would not like to define those. I am trying to keep my speech as brief as I can. I believe that the interests which we may regard as irreducible are probably the same as those which other countries maintain and take into account when co-operating with us, as I hope they will in future.
As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said, the nub of this question is political will, and whether it exists in favour of Britain joining. That means France. It is a question whether her attitude is any more favourable today than it was in 1962–63. I do not know whether the Prime Minister can tell us whether he has any information on this. I hoped that when, in his statement on Thursday last, he said that he was going to make these advances to Europe, he

had information which would lead us to believe that there was a greater likelihood of British membership being acceptable to the French authorities than it was four or five years ago.
I hope that at the end of this debate the impression will go out that the great majority of hon. Members are enthusiastically in favour of a closer association between the E.F.T.A. countries and the Community, by our joining the Community and accepting full membership and the basic policies as agreed, and working together within the Community for the benefit not only of Western Europe and the Commonwealth but of the whole free world beyond.

6.42 p.m.

Mr. Eric S. Heffer: I think that every hon. Member was fascinated by the speech made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Easing-ton (Mr. Shinwell). He said that he loved this country. I do not want to get too involved in that sort of discussion, but I must tell my right hon. Friend that my ancestors may have been marching with Wat Tyler. They fought in the Hundred Years' War and in every other war that this country has fought since. I can trace my ancestry right back—[An HON. MEMBER "To Adam."]—practically. At any rate, I can trace it to my great-great-great-grandmother, buried in a Cambridge churchyard, and well beyond that. Let us get this question of love of our country in its correct perspective. I hope that we all love our country. If we did not, we would not be representing our various constituents here. This has nothing to do with the important question that we are now discussing. What is important is not whether we love our country but whether we believe in the historical necessity of this country's entering a wider European group.
I have been just as consistent on this question as my right hon. Friend has. I remember sitting at the Labour Party conference listening, in the depths of gloom, to Hugh Gaitskell making a speech, because I opposed the policy of my party at that time. I thought that we were making a fundamental mistake in our attitude, and I am delighted that the party and the Government now recognise that we have to join a wider European group in order to solve not only our


problems but the problems of Europe and, ultimately, to help solve the problems of the under-developed countries.
This debate is of fundamental and historic importance, and the eyes not only of our people but of the people of the entire world are on us to see precisely where we are going and what we intend to do. There are many Ancient Britons in this House, on both sides. We have to get away from the Ancient Briton concept. We live in an era of continents and subcontinents, and the quicker we understand that the moment we got rid of our colonies and the moment other countries got rid of their colonies and nationalism developed in various parts of the world—from that moment onwards there was a necessity for all countries to get together on a continental basis in order to solve their economic and political problems.
If it is important for the Africans to work together, the South Americans to work together and the Asians to work together, why is it not just as important for us in Europe to work together? Surely it is just as sensible, or even more sensible. We have been told that the Community is inward-looking. This was one of the great arguments that used to be put up. It was said that if we joined it we were joining a tightly-knit club that would concern itself only with itself, whereas we should be concerned with the Commonwealth and our E.F.T.A. partners. What happened in 1961 and 1963? Norway applied for full membership of the Community. Denmark applied for full membership. Even Sweden—a neutral country—wanted to enter into some sort of association with the Community. These are our E.F.T.A. partners. What about the Commonwealth? On 16th July, Nigeria signed an agreement of association with E.E.C. At present Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya are also engaged in discussions and negotiations with the Common Market countries. In the last two years 273 million dollars have been pumped into 18 African countries from the Common Market. Is it such an inward-looking organisation?
Let us consider the question of trade with the Eastern European countries. My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Renée Short), who has always been absolutely sincere in her belief on this question, made the

point that if we joined the Community we should no longer be in a position to trade with Eastern European countries, or at least that our trade with them might fall away. One would believe from that that the Common Market countries do not trade with Eastern Europe. I have the facts, and they are quite clear. Between 1960 and 1964 there was an annual increase in trade between the Common Market countries and the Eastern European bloc. The danger is that we are being left behind.
These arguments are not valid. There is the further question whether the supranational Commission is an authority which directs the Governments of the countries of the Community. The truth is that the Council of Ministers is basically responsible for determining overall policy in the Community.

Mrs. Renée Short: It is not.

Mr. Heffer: It is no good my hon. Friend saying that it is not, because it is. Yesterday an hon. Member opposite said that nobody had read the Treaty of Rome. If that were so it would be a disgrace. Article 149 provides that
When, pursuant to this Treaty, the Council acts on a proposal of the Commission, it shall, where the amendment of such proposal is involved, act only by means of a unanimous vote …".
So, when the Commission makes proprosals to the Council for changes in the Treaty of Rome, it has to be done unanimously and any one nation involved in the European Economic Community can veto the whole business. What happened? We know that Professor Hallstein undoubtedly wanted to strengthen the powers of the Commission and strengthen his own position and was using the agricultural debates and discussions to do so. General de Gaulle sank Professor Hallstein almost without trace on the basis of the actual Rome Treaty.
The facts are that there is no great danger of a supranational authority directing everyone to do what the Commission wants. But we have a civil service. Do we not have a national civil service which comes up with propositions to our Government? I sometimes think that the Government accept them too readily and that there are times when they might, perhaps, kick them into


touch, and no doubt this is the same position for the Commission.
It is not a very large international civil service, incidentally. It is rather a small one, though the potential for growth is there. Perhaps, when Britain joins the Common Market, it might get bigger—I do not know. The point is that we must be realistic and honest about this. The people who are opposing entry into the European Economic Community must argue on the basis of what the situation really is and not what they believe it to be.
We were told that if we joined the E.E.C. we could not extend public ownership. Yet in Italy, only a year or so ago, they nationalised the electricity supply industry and there are plans in that country for a further extension of public ownership. What are the possibilities for us at the moment? I agree with the Government. My hon. Friend the Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) argued yesterday that we do not want merely to make it seven. I agree with him and with the views of the Government in this respect. It is not a question simply of making it seven. We want to extend the Economic Community so that it embraces all the E.F.T.A. countries and all the E.E.C. countries.
Ultimately, I would like to go further and see the countries of Eastern Europe involved in a wider European community. This is not so impossible, as the Rumanians and the Poles and others are already seeking ways of extending their trading relationship with the Western European Powers. This is the sort of internationalised concept which we must accept.
What are the alternatives? We have not heard any real alternatives. One is that we become increasingly—week by week and month by month—a satellite of the United States of America. That is already happening. The other alternative is that we become a satellite of the Soviet Union and the Eastern European bloc. There may be hon. Members who want either one or the other. I do not. I see the possibility of creating a European Community wide and big enough to keep back both the Soviet Union and the United States of America. If we are ever to achieve real independence in our foreign policy, the solution lies in join-

ing a wider European Economic Community.
There is one aspect of this matter which frightens me somewhat and which, it seemed to me, the Foreign Secretary too flippantly pushed aside. That is the question of our relationship with France. When my right hon. Friend says that we will not change our position vis-à-vis America, that our relationship will be the same, I would say to him that if this is the position we might as well stop talking about it right now as it is "not on". The speeches which have been made by General de Gaulle and the articles in the French Press all say quite clearly that we obviously cannot go into the E.E.C. if they believe that we are a satellite of the United States. This must be faced and faced sharply by the Government.
I believe, therefore, and I say this to my hon. Friends on the Right Bench—[Laughter.]—the Front Bench. I did not mean that literally, although I often do. It was a Freudian slip. I would say to them that rather than going round the various Common Market capitals talking to all the leaders of the Common Market they should make one trip first. I would say to them, "Just take a plane from here and go over to Paris. Enter into discussions right now with General de Gaulle ".
I heard Claude Bourdet, a French Left-wing Socialist, speak at an anti-U.S. policy in Vietnam rally here this weekend. He said that he wanted to see us in the Common Market because he thought it would strengthen us and strengthen France and the rest of Europe against the Germans, but he also said that the key to entry into Europe is General de Gaulle. He said that if anyone believed that General de Gaulle was about to die of a heart attack he should forget it. The General is in the best of health: he will last some considerable time.
Fair enough. If that is so, we should obviously enter into discussions with General de Gaulle, because he is the key. The possibilities which have been opened up, the opportunities which are presented, are presented, basically, precisely because of the policy which General de Gaulle has been pursuing over the past period. That is why this is the decisive time for us to make an effort to build a wider European Community.
So let us have these discussions with de Gaulle and recognise the possibilities which exist and the fact that in Germany at the moment and in international Socialism one should not believe that all is lost in Europe. Herr Willi Brandt, with whom we do not particularly agree, might be the Chancellor of West Germany tomorrow. We also note that in Italy there has been a unification between the two great Socialist parties and that Pietro Nenni is now the Deputy Prime Minister. We know that the Socialists are powerful in Belgium and we know that even the French and Italian Communist trade unions are now involving themselves in the European Economic Community institutions.
These are the possibilities which are presented to us, and I believe that it would be a sad day if the Labour Party and the Labour Movement failed to understand the opportunity which was presented and failed to use this opportunity of going in and building, from that basis, a wider European unity, and ultimately creating a United Europe.

6.58 p.m.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: I found myself agreeing with the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) in most of his objectives, but not with two of them. I am not in favour of going into Europe to create a Socialist union. I am not in favour of going into Europe to increase the degree of public ownership. However, I agreed with the others things which the hon. Member mentioned.
This is not a debate between the parties. It has intra-party characteristics, but it is fair to put on the record that on this side of the House roughly nine out of every ten hon. Members are quite clear that they want to go into Europe and go into Europe soon. I cannot say those proportions apply on the other side. Indeed, shortly before the Recess, about 70 Labour hon. Members signed a pro-Common Market Motion in the House, rather more than 80 Labour M.P.s signed an anti-Common Market Motion and one Labour hon. Member signed both. I have often wondered if that was the Prime Minister. Even if it was not, it certainly could have been. For after hearing his announcement and his speech

at the Guildhall I am bound to say that I am still not certain whether his heart is really in it. The Guardian put the true position when it said that he is anti with his heart but he is pro with his head—or his feet. That may summarise very well the Prime Minister's position. When he replies tonight he can make it quite clear.
For myself I am as British as the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell). But I am also proud to call myself an Anglo-European. I ask the Prime Minister when he gets up in the House tonight to say that he, too, is a European. If tonight he says, "I believe in Europe", he will go a long way to helping his negotiations when he starts to travel around the capitals of Europe.
I welcome the Government's decision in part as a constituency Member, because it will benefit East Anglia and the farmers in my constituency not least. I welcome it mainly, however, because E.E.C. is something very much more than a free trade area. As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has said, the new Europe is much more even than an economic union. I believe it to be an evolving community with an organic life and a political will of its own.
I would like to mention some of the features that lead me to that conclusion. Beyond the economic union there is the common transport policy which, as of 22nd June last year, began the important process towards harmonising freight rates for the road, rail and canals among all member countries. There is the common agricultural policy, which already is achieving great things for European farmers. Something in which hon. Members opposite will be particularly interested is the fact that the increase in scale and competitiveness of pan-European industry has led in many cases to a reduction in real prices.
I quote from the 1966 Report of the E.E.C. It states that the reduction of Customs duties, the intensification of competition and the concentration of production units has led to economies in scale that have brought down the prices of electrical household appliances in particular. In Belgium the price of a certain type of refrigerator has dropped nearly 30 per cent. since 1960. Price reductions


have also been noted for radio and television sets in France and for small tools imported into Italy from Germany. This is what is happening. It is important. Then there is the European Bank, which last year alone made loans worth £150 million for such things as the motorway of the Val d'Aosta, in Italy, and for irrigation of the Metaplano Plain. This, too, is happening. It is important.
In addition, there is the regional policy of Europe which the Foreign Secretary mentioned. What could be more significant than that the European Bank has started in the Bari area of Apulia a whole complex of engineering industries which could not have existed without the European Bank? There are 30 factories there which would not have been there but for the European Bank. Something similar is happening in the other underdeveloped areas of Europe in the Huns-ruck and in the Lorraine and Luxembourg area.
Those who oppose the Common Market sometimes tend to regard these things as technical details. But they are the bones and the sinews of the new Europe that is being created. Professor Hallstein put it rather well in one of his recent speeches when he said:
Nothing would be more dangerous than to belittle and push aside these economic and social advances as purely 'technical'. No, the quality of this work is … the solid basis for the complete unification of Europe.
In my submission, that is the key. Going into Europe is a political decision, and it is on the political credibility of the British application that our prospects are bound to depend.
One is, of course, aware of the political difficulties in Europe—in Germany, in France, and elsewhere. But from my experience this summer I believe that among the younger people of Europe in particular there is a tide that is running, and it is a tide towards Europeanism. One can see it in the prefix "Euro" that is added to almost every conceivable commodity in European shops. It is possible to buy a Euro-raincoat or a Euro-beer. One can buy almost every conceivable European feature. One finds among the young generation of Germans, French and Italians that they are laying aside their old national loyalties in favour of a devotion to Europe as a whole.
I spoke to a young X-ray technician in Aachen and asked her where she went for her holidays this summer. She said that she went to the beach. As I spoke with her it became apparent that when her father had spoken of the beach he had meant simply that little bit of North German shore which was all the beach that was available to the pre-war Germans. To her, however, the beach meant any point in the European Continent where the water came to the land. She thought of the beach as Italy, France or Spain because she thought as a European. This is extremely important. A new kind of European man is developing.
We have had some fun in this House recently about hyphens. But I believe that there is coming into existence a new kind of hyphenated man in Europe. There are Franco-Europeans and Belgo-Europeans, and I believe that Anglo-Europeans are coming into existence too. [Laughter.] Lest the hon. Lady the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Renée Short) bursts her sides, let me say to her that if she looks back to the United States in the late nineteenth century, she will recall how the hyphenated generation of Jewish-hyphen-Americans and Greek-hyphen- and Italian-hyphen-Americans gradually evolved over the last generation into complete Americans. This is an important process. It is happening to the new generation in Europe as it did in America, too.
I spoke to some of these people this summer, and I would like to quote some of their remarks to me. Monsieur Kohnstamm, for example, Vice-President of Monsieur Monnet's European Movement, said:
I feel about Europe the way a man from Michigan feels about the United States.
Then there was a young Belgian, who said:
I am as excited about what happens in Italy as I am about what happens in my own country. I would find it very hard to become a pure Belgian again.
Among the younger people of Europe, this attitude is second nature.
The under-thirties of Europe know nothing of the Second World War. They are travelling, trading and getting to know one another with little reference to the old frontiers. German car plants are


sprinkled with young Italians and the universities of Italy are today filled with French and Dutchmen.
If the hon. Lady the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East wishes to laugh again, she might go to St. Tropez. She might find that a new generation is being conceived there just as surely as a generation of Americans was conceived in the back of Ford's Model T. I interviewed some of these young people too and I want to quote one or two of their remarks.

Mr. Mendelson: We are not in the Common Market, but would not the hon. Member agree that we are making a useful contribution at St. Tropez without having signed the Treaty of Rome?

Mr. Griffiths: Yes, of course, and all power to them. It is happening at Brighton as well.
A young man called Lewin, living near Bonn, said to me:
I do not feel particularly German any longer. I am a European.
A man named Breschi, an Italian civil servant, said to me:
I am a born Roman, but I honestly want to see Brussels or Paris become the capital of the new Europe.
A man called Richard Mehrten, an Alsatian, said to me:
I feel myself to be a European. The etiquette of nationality has worn off.
I believe that when we hear young people saying that words like "Boche" and "Fritz" no longer mean very much in Europe they are speaking from the heart and they are speaking from their own postwar experience.
A young man from Dusseldorf, named Springer, said:
Paris to my father was abroad. To me it is just eight hours drive.
There are hundreds of similar youngsters graduating each year from the European schools. And just as this is happening in Europe, just as a new kind of European man is emerging there, so too a new generation of young English men and English women want to join in the process. They understand something, perhaps better than do many of us in this House.
They look ahead over the 35 years still remaining in this century, and they realise that the United States has added to its population the equivalent of one

Britain since the Second World War. It has added 56 million people since 1945. It has also added the equivalent of four and a half Britains in its gross national product since the Second World War, and by the year 1990 the United States will have a population of something better than 340 million and a gross national product which will outmatch ours by something better than 20 to 1.
The Soviet Union, too, by that time, will be the equivalent of one and a half Americas today. And then there is China, growing at the rate of one Britain each seven or eight years, in its population.
In such a world, with such a massive America, such a Russia, and such a China, who are we kidding when we say that we can compete in the new science-based industries, computers, aircraft, and so on? We must recognise that if we want to play our part in the world that is ahead of us, to produce the things that will enable us to prosper in tomorrow's world, then we have to think on the same kind of economic scale and, I believe, in terms of the same sort of organic political unit, as the United States, the Soviet Union and the China of the future.
This is plain reality, and it is because, in my submission, the younger generation is aware of this, that it is aware of the adventure—and the Prime Minister used these words—of building a new Europe. I therefore ask the Government to accept that we are not here approaching just a free trade area, not just an economic union, but we are approaching an organic political entity evolving fast. We must make a political commitment in good faith, and we must say that we too are Europeans. Otherwise I fear we shall not be accepted and our future prospect is dim.

The Second Clerk Assistant at the Table informed the House of the unavoidable absence of Mr. SPEAKER from the remainder of this day's sitting.

Whereupon Sir ERIC FLETCHER, the CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS, took the Chair as DEPUTY SPEAKER, pursuant to the Standing Order.

7.15 p.m.

Mr. J. J. Mendelson: It has been my good fortune before now to follow the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Eldon Griffiths) in a major


debate, and I have heard—always pleasantly, at the beginning—a number of things he has contributed to the debate with which nobody could disagree. Many of the things he said in favour of growing together, of becoming more internationally minded, and the many touching examples which he quoted, I welcome as much as any other hon. Member in the House. I can assure him that if that were all that was involved in this particular operation on which Her Majesty's Government are embarking, I would not have many anxieties, and I would not have many sleepless nights as a result of agreeing with him across the Floor of the House.
I must hurriedly return, because other Members wish to speak, to what I consider to be the core of this debate. It deals not with the general principles, either of internationalism or of international Socialism, but—if I may say so, with great respect, to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer)—it deals with the precise operation which our Government are facing, and the people involved in it are not all of Europe, but represent only a small corner of Europe.
Six countries are involved, and the whole debate is terminologically misguided if we continue to use the term "Europe". Europe is not involved, nor was it ever in the minds of many of the people who had a lot to do with creating the European Common Market. Something which has not yet been mentioned in the debate is that some of those who were responsible for creating this particular European Economic Community wanted it to be a barrier against the countries of Eastern Europe and against the political system which these countries have evolved. That has not been mentioned in this debate, but it is part of the evidence.
There were also many sincere, idealistic Europeans in the original European movement, but there are many others particularly orientated against the Eastern countries, and many with a very definite and deliberately anti-Socialist record.
I mention this point because I think that one of the useful points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Walton was his insistence that we should state the facts. I do not know whether I will achieve my objective, but I propose to

spend my entire speech on contributing some of the facts which have not yet been mentioned.
The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition was absolutely correct when he stated his opinion that there is no question at this stage of Britain entering the European Economic Community without, in advance, agreeing to the Treaty of Rome as it stands today. I find myself in factual agreement with the right hon. Gentleman on that point, and I believe that it would be a misfortune if we did not tell the people of the country at the outset that that is what is involved in this particular approach.
It is a matter of great political importance that whatever might be the final decision of the British people, they ought to be told from the beginning that this operation is meant, by many Members on both sides of the House, to be based on the acceptance of the Treaty of Rome as it stands.
The right hon. Gentleman, the Leader of the Opposition went on to say that there were other things that were not negotiable. The same terminology was used by the noble Lord the Member for Hertford (Lord Balniel), in winding up the debate last night. The same language was used by the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home), who led for the Opposition yesterday, for whose observations on these matters, and for the realism that inspires them, I have always a very high regard. They said that certain things that had happened, based upon the Treaty of Rome, were also not negotiable. And they said that prominently, and not at all negotiable, is the present agricultural arrangement arrived at by the Six countries. What we have not heard, in the lavish propaganda during recent months and years, in the number of articles that have been published by the large number of journalists who have been invited to Brussels, and the large number of propagandists, who have gone back and forth once a month, who have written reams about the development of the agricultural side of the Community, is a detailed and critical examination of what actually happens in the agricultural field.
I wish, in a modest way, to contribute a little towards eradicating that serious deficiency. I submit that one of the best ways is not to look in from the outside,


but to learn from the experiences and the views of those already involved. I do not think that there will be any dissent from that, it will be common ground.
I have in front of me a copy of the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, which is perhaps the best paper published in the Federal Republic of Germany today—and I am glad to see that I carry with me a reputable journalist of long standing like the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds. On Monday, 14th November, there appeared a long article under the headline:
The agricultural policy of the European Economic Community is new, but is it, in fact, a better one?
So as not to delay the House for too long I have taken just three items from this report by this journalist, whose name is Jose Strick. The article is datelined Brussels, 13th November, so it comes right from the horse's mouth. One just could not be closer to the way things are going there. The three items refer to milk, to, equally important, butter, and to the price of bread. British consumers have not been mentioned very much so far in this debate, but they are entitled to know what is happening in Brussels and in the Common Market.
Referring, first, to milk—and I will paraphrase in part as, otherwise, I would take too long—the writer states that considering the decision to agree on a common price for milk within the European Economic Community, there was need to create a synthesis between the rather low French price with the very high Italian price. After many weeks of intense discussion of whether 39 pfennigs per litre would be a suitable price for most member-States of the Community, that price was fixed—after due consideration of how it might affect the selling price of cheese and other commodities derived from milk, including butter.
What happened next should interest my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade, who has to deal with some aspects of these matters—though I regret the absence of the Minister of Agriculture and Food, because it would have been of even more interest to him. It was found in Germany that at the very moment when this rather high price had been fixed, the price of butter went

up. This happened when the German equivalent of our Ministry of Agriculture and Food found that hundreds of thousands of tons of butter were beginning to go bad, and wanted, as a result, to sell it at a low price. Instead, it had to insist on a wholly, unrealistic high price, although the butter needed to be sold quickly. This was of equal significance to farmers in making their decisions for the following year.
That is the first piece of nonsense— and it is serious nonsense—in connection with the policy which, according to the noble Lord the Member for Hertford, we cannot examine. He said that it is not negotiable; that we must accept it lock, stock and barrel—

Lord Balniel: The hon. Gentleman really must be fair to me. I specifically pointed out that while I felt that we should accept the structure of the agricultural policy, we should negotiate individual projects, target prices, transitional arrangements and special measures for certain Commonwealth goods. The hon. Gentleman is slightly misinterpreting what I said.

Mr. Mendelson: I am not slightly misinterpreting anything. When we look at the OFFICIAL REPORT, we will find that the noble Lord made the blanket statement that this policy is not negotiable.
My second example is the price of bread. Here we have something of the utmost interest to the British consumer. This reporter says that the price of bread had been fixed in 1952, and was going up every year until it was to be reviewed in 1967. In spite of that fixing of the price at a certain datum line, the price has since been going up every year. In this year, it has gone up by 6 pfennigs per kilo.
The writer states:
Although the price of bread has been going up every year whether the price of flour has been going down or up, nobody has been able to do anything about it. Somehow or other the price of bread goes up.
The article goes on:
It is the intermediate arrangements that are responsible for this continuous rising line in the price of bread, no matter what happens to the actual basic commodity from which bread is made.
That is because under this rather unreasonable arrangement there is no possibility for anyone in one of the six


countries to take remedial action each year, either by an agricultural price review, or by deliberate intervention or by taking due regard of the market.
We are in this fantastic situation. The proponents of free enterprise and the advocates of the play of the market pay no regard to the market. I see opposite many hon. Members with whom I sometimes go on delegations abroad. Whenever the subject is the play of the market they look on it as a sacred cow, and those of us on this side of the Chamber who do not have the same devotion to the play of the market are out in the cold. Here we have them advocating the acceptance of a system which is not negotiable, that we cannot even amend. If we go in we must accept that system, finding, once we are in, that the price of bread goes up, and that neither the President of the Board of Trade nor the Minister of Agriculture will be able to do anything about it.
Consumers in this country should know these facts. I warn my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister that in no circumstances should he allow the pressure that is being put upon him now by the Leader of the Opposition, by the leaders of some industries—and even by Mr. Cecil King, the owner of the Daily Mirror and the Sunday Mirror—to drive him into accepting a policy which makes the agricultural arrangements of the Community unnegotiable. This matter must be looked at most carefully, and there must in every respect be an insistence that these arrangements are most critically examined. The six countries of the Community spent four and a half years carefully negotiating and discussing each other's interests. Before I give my approval to a decision to make application to go into the European Economic Community, I want the same conditions to apply to this country.
The attitude of the Commonwealth countries has not yet been mentioned. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister—and I would not say that this was the case to the same degree with my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary—in all our debates when the Leader of the Opposition was engaged in the previous negotiations, used to give us a considerable number of quotations from the speeches and statements of Commonwealth

statesmen. There should not be any deficiency in that respect now, so I would like to read into the record—moving now from strict agricultural policy to the importance of the Commonwealth countries—what was said by Mr. McEwan earlier this week about Britain and the European Economic Community.
Mr. McEwan is reported in The Times of 16th November 1966 as saying:
Australia had plenty to fear from Britain's proposed entry into the European Economic Community.
He also said:
Important Australian trade items, particularly wheat, meat, dairy products and dried fruits, were threatened by the outcome of the Kennedy Round talks and Britain's negotiations … British authorities had promised to keep Australia closely informed about their negotiations to enter the Common Market. 'I shall be expecting the United Kingdom to live up to that,' Mr. McEwan added.
I am advisedly and deliberately thinking not about New Zealand but about Australia because the tendency has grown up since the new initiative of the Prime Minister was taken—and this applies not only to hon. Members but to members of the Government, too—to believe that the only problem that remains is New Zealand and that all other countries, including Australia, are not worried about the possible solution to this problem. This is a profoundly incorrect assumption and nobody is more entitled to make this point than Mr. McEwan.
Will the Community be inward or outward looking? It has been wrong for so many hon. Members to have taken merely one statement made yesterday by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Renée Short), about future relations with Eastern European countries, and to have used that as a peg on which to hang certain assumptions about our entry into the Community and to say that there will be no change in our policy and attitude in wider international affairs.
To put the point more moderately, I suggest that the implications here are somewhat different. My hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mr. Ennals), who is now a junior Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Army, some time ago founded a group of hon. Members which became known as the Wider Europe Group. That group had


the support of many senior members of the Government. The purpose and policy of the group was to argue that the way in which Britain could play the best possible rôle in bridging the barriers between East and West Europe was not by becoming confined in the E.E.C. group, but by working together in wider spheres with the countries of East and West Europe. However, that policy will be abandoned if we decide to make application to become a full member of the Community.
As many hon. Members have pointed out, there are bound to be changes in the general attitude of the Community once we become a full member of it. I am not referring to federalism. Some hon. Members have created the Aunt Sally of federalism as an excuse for denying the importance of the political problems that are involved. I agree with the Leader of the Opposition that the political and defence problems are at the very heart of any negotiations that might take place.
Already, we have had the suggestion from the Leader of the Opposition that the Prime Minister should agree, even before a formal application is made, that nuclear weapons should, perhaps, be pooled in a new arrangement with France. It has been the stated policy of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister for many years that he is opposed to the creation of an additional European nuclear command. He stated that in the early stages of the last Parliament, soon after becoming Prime Minister, and he produced an outline for a policy of non-proliferation; and I understand that this is still Government policy.
That being so, I again appeal to the Prime Minister not, under any circumstances, to agree to the pressure that is being put on him to change course and commit Her Majesty's Government to a policy of creating a new nuclear command based on the Community. Such a policy would lead to tough and uncompromising opposition from the Soviet Union, who would see in such a suggestion—and the Soviet Union has made this clear many times—the beginning of a new division and a new nuclear command from which, in the longer term, the Federal Republic of Germany could not be excluded.
Not least important in the policy outlined by the Prime Minister over the last two and a half years has been his policy of non-proliferation. My right hon. Friend, by that policy, made it more difficult for the Federal Republic of Germany to become associated with the control and strategy of nuclear weapons. This has been the basis for the rapprochement between Her Majesty's Government and the Soviet Union during the last 18 months. Despite the tragedy of the Vietnam war, the Sovieit Union and Britain have maintained this rapprochement, and this has been mainly due to the Soviet Union having the knowledge that, on the problem of West Germany and nuclear weapons, the Soviet Government and Her Majesty's Government were at one.
I must refer to the sovereignty of Parliament and our political arrangements in this country because whenever this subject is mentioned some hon. Members begin to talk about reactionaries and those who seem to live in the eighteenth century refusing to bring their thinking up to date. It is amusing to find some hon. Gentlemen opposite supporting every type of reactionary policy in Parliament. Since we have been referring to the Community, they have been accusing some of my hon. Friends of being reactionaries. That is strange, but stranger things have happened before.
What is involved in this issue is not a symbol of sovereignty; for example, about whether or not Black Rod should interrupt our proceedings. Something much more important is at stake. Some of my hon. Friends and I have always disagreed with those in the House who have said, "Let us join the Community by signing the Treaty of Rome and then, once we are in, we can try to influence the Community's political thinking in a way that will satisfy us". My hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot), in the first debate when the previous attempt to join the E.E.C. was made by the present Leader of the Opposition, created a memorable phrase when he said, in effect, "This is rather fraudulent. We cannot go into a community which is devoted to rugby and demand that they all play soccer". That sums it up. We could not possibly say" "We will come in, but see to it, by using our tremendous influence, that the future


political developments go our way". To say so would be fraudulent.
Honesty compels anyone involved in this argument to agree that, within the Community, there are people like General de Gaulle who want l'Europe des patries and many others who want the Community to develop into a system which is not federalism, but is what Dr. Adenauer once described to us, when he was Chancellor, that what he wanted to see was a joint foreign and defence policy decided jointly by the Community. He added, in effect, "Unless that is so, I am not interested in it".
It is misleading and wrong to say that only Professor Hallstein wants to develop the Community in that direction. It is equally wrong to say that he has been put in his place by General de Gaulle. Hon. Members know that the facts of life are not as simple as that. Professor Hallstein, the President of the Commission, is not the only person who thinks that way. Her Majesty's Government have no right to commit Britain by signing the Treaty of Rome in advance of political developments taking place over which we will have little control—that is, unless we have made such arrangements in advance as will enable us to say with reasonable certainty what future developments will take place.
So-called alternatives are often mentioned. My right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) said that it was not essential than anybody who has doubts and criticisms of what is proposed must produce a plan of alternatives. My right hon. Friend is correct, because it is equally clear that those who are proposing this policy are talking in terms of great uncertainty and often about matters on which they are uncertain themselves. I am convinced that if there is to be the sort of future for Britain that was envisaged by the Wider European Group, the best alternative we have is that of developing trade as well as economic and political relations with a larger number of countries than is contained at present in the Community.
It is said that we have been developing trade with the E.E.C. countries, but that is far too limited. There is no real basis for the future economic development

of the United Kingdom unless we have much wider trade with Latin America, the United States, the Soviet Union, China and many other countries in Eastern and Central Europe. The key argument employed by the Prime Minister against those who wanted to support the right hon. Member for Bexley last time was that the tariff wall we shall have to agree to create around the European Economic Community will not be a help in the development of that wider trade.
This is a difficult limited operation on which the Government have so far only said that they want to probe and to negotiate, and make an application to enter the E.E.C. if they think the replies to those probings and negotiations are right. The Government are now being pressed by the leaders of the Opposition and powerful forces outside to throw their own attitude overboard and to sign the Treaty of Rome, declaring that the most important aspects of the Community are not negotiable. If they accept that pressure and those courses and if, at the end of the probings and negotiations, they find that the answers have not been satisfactory from their point of view and the point of view of most hon. Members on this side of the House, they have no right to make an application. If they still do so they will not carry all hon. Members on this side with them.

7.41 p.m.

Mr. Peter Mills: I must, first, declare an interest. That may sound very stupid when we are all bound to be involved in this exercise, but I declare an interest because I am a Member of a Parliament and a practical farmer. Therefore, in the years which lie ahead it may well be that my pocket will be affected in one way or another. I believe that with patient negotiations my pocket will be affected the right way in the long run.
I find it rather strange to be following the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson). I did not know that he was an agriculturist. I thought him far more convincing in his arguments at the end than at the beginning of his speech when he was seeking to be an agriculturist.

Mr. Mendelson: I said that while the agricultural industry had been mentioned


there had not been much mention of consumers. In representing consumers, I am at least as much an expert as is the hon. Member.

Mr. Mills: I beg the hon. Member's pardon. I thought that he was seeking to represent agriculturists.
I must straight away make my position quite clear. I am very much for entering the Common Market—certainly economically, although I have some fears politically. Perhaps this is due to ignorance, and perhaps at the end of the debate I may be informed a little better. I think that already some of my fears are disappearing. I have no hesitation in confining my remarks to agriculture. I know that this is a narrow section of the debate, but it is important that I should do so for British agriculture and entry into the Common Market has been a stumbling block in the past, and may well be in the future.
It is true that there has been considerable opposition from agriculture and farmers in the past. I can truthfully say that I am glad to tell the House that I believe that that opposition is disappearing. It is disappearing fast, and it will continue to do so so long as we are kept informed. It is true that the National Farmers' Union has had reservations. One can understand this when one remembers the position the union has taken in the past. It is not easy for the union to turn round very quickly. It is certainly no good dismissing the fears of the National Farmers' Union or the reservations it has. It will be our job to convince the members of the union and to alleviate their fears. We must try to persuade them of the importance of taking this step and of the long-term gains which can accrue from entry to the Common Market.
How do I see the Common Market as it affects agriculture? What are the objects of the Common Market agricultural policy? I suggest that the first is to increase agricultural productivity by promoting technical progress. Is not this just what farmers have wanted for a very long time? The second is to ensure a fair standard of living for the agricultural community. Is not this just what all farmers have been wanting for many years? The next is the stabilising of markets and improvement and then the guarantee of supplies

of food to ensure delivery of supplies at reasonable prices. Is not this just what the housewife wants as well?
I believe that the aims are right. The Common Market policy is designed to encourage maximum home production. We as a country should be well placed to carry this out. Those sections which will find it difficult to adjust themselves will be given a transitional period to do so. This we must guarantee, for otherwise they will be hurt. I believe that most British farmers would get this. We are more efficient and we have a greater record of productivity. Because the E.E.C. countries import food we could as it were, out of the Common Market become exporters, thus offering this country an expansion in agriculture. I am sure that this is just what farmers have been wanting and—to use a typical farmers' phrase—belly-aching about for years.
One thing I am certain of as I look into the future is that agriculture and its support system will have to be changed. This will be so whether we go into the Common Market or not. Now is the time for radical re-thinking. We should be getting our support system right now and geared for a change. Now is the time to prepare for entry into the Common Market. This Government have failed to do that. They have not taken the important step of starting to adjust British agriculture to meet this challenge. What research and exploration have they carried out? I think none. It is no use delaying these moves. This should be given top priority for British agriculture.
For the first time this year farmers are beginning to see the results of not being in Europe. The crippling effect of the E.E.C. tariff wall is going up. What a difference that has made to our exports of meat to the Continent! What a difference it has made to the prices of our primary products! Agriculture will be forced to take the question of entry seriously or it will find that it is out in the cold with seriously reduced income. Unless we are inside we may become the dumping ground for many primary products directed away because of the tariff wall of the E.E.C. countries.
I am not suggesting that we shall not have difficulty. Some sections of agriculture may be embarrassed or forced to


alter the types of food they have been producing. No one likes change, but I believe that it would be far more perilous to stay outside. Staying out of Europe may call for greater internal changes than joining Europe.

Mr. Robert Maclennan: Perhaps in describing these changes the hon. Member might deal with the hill and upland farming industry, which at present is in such difficulties, and suggest means by which it can adjust and change its ways. He might also say if he agrees that the production grants should be eliminated as a first step towards aligning our agricultural system with that of the Common Market.

Mr. Mills: I think this is a problem. I shall not be side-tracked, because there are other things I want to say, but this is the sort of thing on which we shall have to negotiate. After all, other countries in the Common Market have the same trouble and problems of hill farmers. After a time they can be dealt with as—I agree with the hon. Member—they must be. We must certainly encourage a phasing of these changes. That is why it is important for the Government to start now to change agricultural policy to meet these future needs.
I wish to say something about agricultural exports to the E.E.C. in future years. I believe that we have a great future here and that we can export into the Common Market, particularly in grain. The Common Market countries produce only about 82 per cent. of their barley needs. This gives us great scope for export. The Six have only just started to realise the importance of barley in feeding to their cattle.
Beef, too. The Six take the type of cattle and bullocks that we do not want. By that I mean the heavy beast—12 cwt., 12½ cwt. and 13 cwt. cattle. This is a very useful export. Now that we have been denied it, we are seeing a big fall in price in our beef.
On the Continent they have not started to use lamb to any great extent. Our early lamb which can be exported to the Continent is a most profitable business. This goes for eggs, too. The Six are nothing like as geared to egg production as we are, or as cheaply. There is a market for us here, too. Then there are chickens for eating—roasting or

broiling. The Six have nothing of our broiler industry. So there is scope for export here. There may be difficulties as to milk, pigs and horticulture. This will affect me as a producer of milk and pig meat, but these difficulties, too, can be overcome.
I shall cut short what I had intended to say because many other hon. Members want to speak. What will the effect of this be on Commonwealth countries? We have heard a great deal about this topic this afternoon. I want to put the agricultural point of view of its effect on Commonwealth countries. I do not believe that it will be anything like so disastrous as some hon. Members have alleged.
I have recently returned from New Zealand and Australia. I talked with the Minister of Agriculture in New Zealand and with the Minister of Primary Products in Australia. Admittedly, they are worried, but to nothing like the extent which has been expressed in the House. This is because they have started to prepare already.
New Zealand has started exporting its lamb to Japan, Malaysia and Pakistan. I saw how thoroughly the operation was being conducted. There was a Pakistan killer on line production so as to meet the needs of the Pakistanis. The new Zealanders are getting a better price for their lambs there than they would have got if they had sent them over here. Australia has done as well. In preparation for this event, Australia has been sending vast quantities of its rather lean beef to America and elsewhere.
It is agreed that New Zealand should have special dispensation or agreements. I said to the New Zealand Minister of Agriculture, "You cannot go on producing something that the world does not need all that amount of—in other words, butter". Butter is the easy way of producing money from grass. There is the alternative of producing beef, which the world desperately needs. I suggested this, but New Zealand was not prepared to make these changes. Circumstances may force New Zealanders to change from the rather easy way of making a living by producing butter from grass to the other way of producing beef, which the world needs. New Zealand farmers will have to make changes, as British farmers will have to.
I believe that time is running out for agriculture in relation to the Common Market. The time is fast approaching when we shall eventually go in and play our part in the future of agriculture in Europe. British agriculture has much to offer Europeans. In spite of the difficulties and problems which will arise, agriculture will play its part. I have no doubt that it will rise to the occasion, meet its difficulties and adapt itself, because British agriculture knows that it is very closely tied to the prosperity of the United Kingdom. If Great Britain is prosperous as a nation, farmers are doing better. Unemployment is no good to British farmers. I believe that farmers realise this and wish to see a prosperous United Kingdom. I believe that one of the steps we shall have to take to make the United Kingdom prosperous is that of entering Europe.

7.55 p.m.

Mr. Ivor Richard: I hope that the hon. Member for Torrington (Mr. Peter Mills) will forgive me if I do not follow him into the intricacies of agriculture. Barley is not a commodity which is produced very much in the back streets of Hammersmith. Therefore, I will not follow him, for the best of reasons, namely, my almost total ignorance of the details of what he was talking about.
The initiative which the Government have taken in declaring their intention now of joining the European Economic Community is wholly to be welcomed and wholly to be admired. It is important that the momentum of our approach to Europe should be maintained and this is clearly the way to do it. The Government have made a solemn declaration of their intention to join the Community as soon as possible. I reject as absurd and somewhat ludicrous the concept one or two hon. Members seem to have bruited about—indeed, I have seen it in some columns of the Press—that what the Prime Minister has in mind is merely to explore difficulties and uncover a sufficient number of them to enable him to withdraw from any approach to Europe. I do not believe this to be the position.
I want to make two preliminary points, having sat through yesterday's debate, and almost the whole of today's, on what has been said so far. First, it is terribly important that the nature and extent of

the opposition within the House of Commons to Britain's joining the Community should be made absolutely clear. It would be wrong were either the Press or, perhaps even more importantly, Europe itself to gain the impression from the speeches which have been made in this debate, that the House is fairly evenly divided upon the matter.
Were a free vote to be taken now on the general principle of whether Britain should enter the Community, there would be a large majority of the House in favour of the principle of entering and a small minority against it. Indeed, I doubt if the minority could muster more than 75 Members on a free vote in opposition to the principle of entry. It is important that this fact should be realised by those in Europe who are looking for demonstrations of Britain's sincerity in her approach to the Community. I do not think that Europe will be misled by the stridency of the opposition, but were it possible to count the number of heads on the other side it would in my view be desirable.
My second preliminary point is this. We have heard a great deal in this debate, and I have no doubt that we shall hear more in the coming months, about the political implications of the Treaty of Rome. At the moment, this seems to me to be probably the grossest non-argument which could be used. My right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) said that he was completely against the Treaty of Rome; he was against it totally; and considered that its political implications could not be accepted by this country. Last night one hon. Member spoke much about sovereignty and said that he would not see British sovereignty subordinated in any way.
But at the moment we are not being asked to join a Federal States of Europe. I personally am an unrepentant federalist. I would welcome an eventual United States of Europe. However, the one thing that stands so firmly in the way of a United States of Europe is General de Gaulle and the attitude of the French Government. It is no good for those who are in opposition to what the Government are trying to do to look at political implications, which are clearly at the moment unattainable, to say that they disagree with such an extension of supranationalism and then use that as an argument, in some way or other, against the


Government's present approach. It is a non-argument, but it is a non-argument which, it having been put up, should be firmly dealt with at the earliest possible moment. We are not at the moment considering the possible political implications of the treaty. A fairly definite Community is in existence and we are considering whether it would be desirable for Britain to join it.
Of course there are difficulties in the way of Britain's joining Europe, but these difficulties are not insuperable. They are difficulties, which can be overcome, given good will on both sides. One should always remember that what happened at the time of the last negotiation was not that the practical difficulties in the way of Britain's entry could not be overcome but that, those practical difficulties having almost been surmounted, a political decision was taken by the French Government not to allow us to enter.
In the last negotiation, the economics were right, but the politics, regrettably, were wrong. It is, therefore, extremely important that this Government make sure that the politics are right before we start getting bogged down in the "nuts and bolts" arguments.

Mr. John Lee: May I put to my hon. Friend the question which I put to an hon. Member opposite a little earlier, though not necessarily in any spirit of hostility? Will he stipulate what must be the minimum British interests which should not be bargained away however urgent or desirable entry into the Community might be?

Mr. Richard: This seems a thoroughly wrong way to approach the whole topic. Here we are, a nation of about 55 million people, 22 miles off the coast of Europe where great economic and political events are happening. Clearly, there are certain basic interests which Britain has which we want to safeguard in negotiation, but the one thing which I think would do almost irreparable damage to our prospect of ever getting into the Community would be an attempt to define those interests with the clarity which my hon. Friend demands.
I was saying that it is important to look at the political difficulties which were in our way last time and try to analyse whether those political difficulties are as great this time and what our approach

to them should be. For this purpose, I go back to what is probably the fons et origo, namely, General de Gaulle's Press conference of January 1963. Reading the report, one finds that there were three main grounds of opposition to Britain's becoming a member of the Community. The first was more implied than actually stated. A few days before the General's Press conference, the Nassau Agreement had been made, an agreement which, if I may say so with respect to the Opposition, was somewhat tactless in its timing and somewhat artless in its execution, having regard to the delicacy of the Brussels negotiations at that time. Clearly, the General thought that France was in the position of a slighted suitor and that Britain had somehow or other stolen a march on her in her relations with the United States.
The second main ground upon which, it seems, General de Gaulle was against our joining the E.E.C. was that Britain was not European enough. If is worth reading again the report of this Press conference because it sets out the difficulties and illustrates the intransigence of France which, somehow or other, we must overcome. He stated as his second main ground of opposition that:
England is, in effect, insular, maritime, linked through its trade, markets and food supply to very diverse and often very distant countries. Its activities are essentially industrial and commercial, and only slightly agricultural. It has, throughout its work, very marked and original customs and traditions. In short, the nature, structure and economic context of England differ profoundly from those of the other States of the Continent.
His third main ground of opposition was a somewhat more generalised and undefined one. He said that if the Community were to become enlarged,
in the end there would appear a colossal Atlantic Community under American dependence and leadership which would soon completely swallow up the European community.
Those then were the three main grounds of political opposition by France last time: Nassau and the effect of it, Britain's not being a European nation in the particular Gallic context in which the General used the phrase, and thirdly the danger of over-domination by the United States. It is worth while considering for a moment whether those three political considerations are still as valid today as they were in 1962 and 1963. In the conduct of international affairs, one must


start at least by assuming that people mean what they say. One may discover afterwards, in the course of negotiation, that it is necessary to change this view, but initially this seems to me the only way to approach the matter, and it is time that I approached the stated French position.
First, the Nassau Agreement. I do not consider that the question of British possession of nuclear weapons and the agreement which was reached in 1963 are as valid now as a ground of opposition as they were then. In the last three or four years, the French have succeeded in developing their own nuclear force. Therefore, to a certain extent, the nuclear pretensions of the French Government and of the General in particular have probably been satisfied. I do not for a moment deny that, in the course of negotiations in Paris, defence will loom large, but it does not seem to me now to be quite such an insuperable difficulty as it might have been in 1962 or 1963.
Second, was the ground that Britain was not a European nation, that
the nature, structure and economic context of England differ profoundly from those of the the other States of the Continent".
This may have been true 20 years ago, but it was less true a decade ago than it was then, and it is infinitely less true in 1966 than it was in 1962. More and more, within the last few years, it seems to me, that a realisation has dawned in this country that basically we are in our "nature, structure and economic context" European rather than anything else.
I do not believe that it will be possible for Britain to go on pursuing the sort of world economic rôle that it has sought to pursue in the 20 years since the end of the Second World War. More and more, with the inevitable economic shrinkage which is taking place, and the resultant change in Britain's position in the world, will we be driven in upon Europe and come to realise more and more our European heritage and our European opportunities.

Mr. William Molloy: Let us be quite clear that we mean Europe when we speak of Europe. This debate has been almost ruined by so many people, when referring to the

E.E.C., equating it with Europe. This is an erroneous assumption of massive proportions. I know that my hon. Friend will probably develop this argument a little further to embrace the idea, the much large idea, of bringing about a community which is really Europe.

Mr. Richard: I probably differ from my hon. Friend as to what we mean by "really European", though I entirely agree that the European Economic Community does not represent the whole continent. But the point I make is still true, that within the last five years we have as a nation more and more come to realise that our connection is with the Continent. We do not so much rely upon our markets in the farthest parts of the globe. We have realised at long last—it has taken a long time, and the development of E.F.T.A. has certainly aided the realisation probably more than anything else—that our obviously best and most available markets are those which are nearest, that is, those which are 22 miles across the English Channel on the Continent of Europe itself.
The third ground of opposition which the French then put up was American domination. I suppose that it would be true to say that the attitude of General de Gaulle at the time was that Britain somehow or other through her special relationship with the United States of America would allow that country to dominate a much looser federation of states in Europe, if the E.C.C. were to become much wider.
This raises some rather delicate questions as to our future relationship with the United States. I heard my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary say yesterday:
It is sometimes suggested that if Britain is to join the European Economic Community we must change our relationship with the United States, particularly in defence, and abandon the rôle which we play in the outside world. To this the Government are resolutely opposed. Those who believe that if we state our position other people will not negotiate with us are taking up a wholly indefensible stand ".—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 16th November. 1966; Vol. 736, c. 455.]
It was with some regret that I heard my right hon. Friend say that, not because I am against Britain's taking a global rôle but simply because I have come to believe that Britain's capabilities are such that, with the best will in the


world, our global rôle must continue to shrink. Consider, for example, how in our relationship with the United States, until recently, it was felt that Britain could look after the defence of Africa and America could, in very broad terms, look after the defence of other parts of the world. I do not think that we can guarantee that now. I do not think that we can now even really fulfil that part of our old special relationship with the United States.
Of course, Britain and the United States have always had enormously close ties—in language, outlook and in political and historical traditions. The one great thing that we can bring to the Anglo-American Alliance is the ability to understand their problems and be receptive to their ideas. The one thing that we cannot bring to the alliance is the power to help divide the world into spheres of influence in which we, outside Europe, could play a crucial part. We may in future be able to play an important part, but a crucial one no longer, though I say that with some regret.
Therefore, the political implications of the third ground of opposition which President de Gaulle put up in his Press conference—namely, that, somehow or other, through our special relationship with the United States, we would allow America to dominate Europe—seems of less importance today because the nature and extent of that special relationship has changed, and is still changing.
Although there are enormous difficulties in the way of joining the E.E.C. it is false to talk about Britain being asked to join a federalist Europe. Would that we were, but we are not. Before Britain allowed its sovereignty to be submerged into a larger entity, there would have to take place great, detailed and, I suppose, divisive debate across this Chamber and throughout the nation. But that is not the position we are faced with now.
We are being asked to join a community which is in existence. We are being asked to take part in a Europe which is being created. It is my firm view that it would be grossly wrong of this country to remain outside what is going on at present on the Continent. For that reason, I wholeheartedly welcome the Government's initiative.

Mr. Norman Miscampbell: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Barons Court (Mr. Richard), especially as I agreed with every word he said. If I do not follow him in his arguments it is simply because, on this at least, we are both on exactly the same side.
This is part of a continuing debate which has gone on in this country, in Parliament, in the Press and in all informed circles, since the inception, and before, of the European Economic Community in 1957. The great change that has come in the debate during the last few weeks is that the Labour Party has changed its mind and now the overwhelming majority of the House of Commons is agreed that another attempt should be made to enter the Community. This was a point made by the hon. Member clearly.
It is important to recognise that we in this House have changed—not necessarily on this side, but overwhelmingly in the House as a whole. We have changed our minds. We are prepared to have another go. It is important to recognise this, because I do not think that the objections to our going in have changed. I sensed yesterday, and in the Prime Minister's earlier announcement, an attempt to say to the country that the difficulties which we face are less now than they were in the past. I do not think that that is true. I think that what has changed is our willingness to face up to the price of going in.
If one looks briefly at some of the difficulties, one can say that if one takes up a certain attitude to the Community, and if it is an attitude that one has held over the years, and feels that we must not go in because it will prevent one creating the type of society one wants in this country, then the difficulties present in 1961 are still present.
The problem of New Zealand's agriculture is still there. The whole question of sovereignty is still a vital and difficult problem. It is one which will become increasingly important because, although it seems to be broadly accepted by many in this House that we are going into a Europe of sovereign States, I do not believe that Britain would very long be prepared to stay in a Europe in which, not


in the largest issues but at least in the minor issues of the Commission and the Council, the decisions were taken by civil servants without any controls. I do not believe that for very long we would be prepared to accept that. I do not think that sovereignty can be eliminated.
We have heard eloquent speeches from the benches opposite from hon. Members who believe that Britain should go in a certain direction towards Socialism, but I do not think that the difficulties are any the less. One only has to look at the problems that would be created by the new situation for the steel industry, whether nationalised or not. It would go into far bigger units; the 8 million ton unit may be common. The European coal industry used to produce 240 million tons, which was about what we were producing a few years ago. But now it has come down to 100 million tons, with the main requirement for coking coal. In such a situation it would not be possible for us to keep mines going for social reasons.
I take another random example, the position of sterling. Once we have gone into the Community it will no longer be possible to control the value of our money so far as devaluation is concerned in practical terms, because, once we are in, we will have agreed to agricultural costs being worked out in units of European currency which are related to a dollar base. Consequently, having tied the economy into a Community that had agreed what the prices of agricultural products were to be, it would be crucifying to try to change the exchange rate.
I mention these matters to show that the difficulties are still there. But what has changed, what I welcome particularly, is that, despite the fact that the difficulties are there, the political will in this House seems to have changed. That is of vast importance, because I am sure that, get in or not on this occasion, this will be a problem which will nag at the British conscience until it is finally solved. I believe that every change in Europe—every change in statesmen, the disappearance of General de Gaulle, change among the attitude of the Five—will lead, if we fail on this occasion, every two or three years to further attempts by this House and the country to join the Community.
I do not believe that it is something that we can get out of. But one of the tragedies might be that, as each successive attempt was made, the price would become more difficult and higher and, yet more tragic, as each step was taken we would be prepared to pay a higher price. I believe that we shall probably have to pay a higher price this time than we would have done in 1961. The price in 1961 was infinitely higher than the price would have been if we had gone in as a founder member.
If we are to face that difficulty, would it not be better now to make up our minds clearly that we really are going to pay a firm and high price and will not be put off by what in many cases will simply be transitory difficulties? I do not apologise for this view. It is why I made—and I do not apologise—what perhaps sounded like a flippant intervention in the speech last night of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
I feel that, if this is to be a serious attempt—and I am sure that it is—we would do best to make up our mind as a House that there are things which are not negotiable and that it would be better to say, "Yes" to them at once. I appreciate the Government's difficulties in saying, "Yes" in broad terms, but I do not think that acceptance of the present agricultural set-up would really undermine our negotiating position. We have to accept that sterling will have to be discussed. It is not possible to go in and expect the Europeans to take sterling as it stands at the moment and carry us. We have to discuss the defence position, and it is not possible to go in without doing so. Our whole economy depends on what our defence decisions are.
For those reasons, I would like to see on the Government's behalf a willingness to discuss everything, and I hope that on my right hon. Friends' part there will be no desire to drive the Government at this moment, so long as they are seriously negotiating, to give answers which they might find it difficult to give. Although we might tease them occasionally in debate they should not be forced now to take up positions which could cause difficulties in the negotiations, so long as they are seriously negotiating.
Clearly, I am facing the fact that a high price will have to be paid, and it is quite right that people should ask why we should pay this price. It can be put in a very simple way. I believe that the European Community offers this country an inspiration and something to work for which we will not find anywhere else. I believe that this more than anything else for this country is the chance now to move into an organisation which has that inspiration on a wider stage. I am sure that part of the malaise of this country over the last 10 years has been our retreat from a past which was great to the difficulty of finding a future which made clear sense to us.
We all know the difficulties—production does not seem to increase when the economists take the right steps, and so on. Why is it? It is for the very reason that many people are now coming to recognise that production and the whole élan of a nation doing well economically have not themselves to do with taxes, but how a nation feels about where it is going to get in the world.
Although they have been hardly mentioned, the alternatives to this decision to go in are uncomfortable. They may be economically comfortable. After all, to become the 51st or 52nd State of the United States would not be unsatisfactory economically, but I do not think that the House or the country would find that a very dignified or happy situation. In any case, despite our ties with America, it would be very unnatural.
The comments of many newspapers about this attempt to get into Europe have been very irresponsible. Some newspapers have said that the Prime Minister has got it both ways. If he fails, it is said, he can say to the Leader of the Opposition, Who has been a firm protagonist of going in, "These are the reasons why we cannot go in", and he can then go to the country and "dish" the Conservative Party at the next election on that basis.
That is absolute nonsense. If we do not get in, the Government will find that the country begins to look into itself, to become introspective, and nothing will be more difficult to govern than this country if it really becomes little Englander and turns towards a form of Poujardism. That is why it is vital to move out into

a wider situation, and I am sure that for the political health of both our parties we shall be in a far better position if we can go in than if there is a failure again and the country still does not find its way in the world.
It is often said that the reasons for our wanting to go into Europe are economic. I made my maiden speech just after Hugh Gaitskell made a famous speech in the House, when he said that we were evenly divided. I accept that in some ways the argument may be evenly divided when it is simply money in the pocket. But people mistake economics if they think that size as it is yet known in the world is in itself sufficient to make one richer than the next man. It is noticeable, for instance, that Holland, before the Common Market, had, and Sweden today has, a high standard of living, comparable to our own.
Looking further back, the United States, for instance, in about 1870, with a market at the time noticeably smaller than ours of that time, was very much more highly productive than we were. Lack of size in itself does not mean that one cannot be rich, but it does mean in the modern world that one excludes oneself from most of the new technologies, because it is not possible in the smaller market to run the highly important computer and other technological advances which are coming along.
Our wanting to go into the Common Market is not just a matter of economics. We could be reasonably well off outside, but if we cut ourselves off in this century from technological change we largely cut ourselves off from the main stream of this century. What distinguishes this century from all others is the tremendous rate of technological change. On the American Continent at present are 30,000 of all the 36,000 computers in the world.
If we go on as at present, and do not get into a larger community which will make this type of technology viable, we will find that a totally new form of civilisation is created on the American Continent which will be different in form and in type and in texture from the civilisation on the European Continent. The use of computers and the fall-out and spin-off from space research are now beginning to make us a have-not nation, as has been said time and again. It is not just a matter of money in our pockets,


but of finding ourselves dominated by a United States which has become technologically so far advanced that we shall never be able to catch up. But, of course, there are political overtones to that and it would mean that we would simply become a client State of a vastly greater economy.
I want more than anything else in political life that we should make this decision to go in. The Prime Minister says that he means business, and I am prepared to give him credit and believe that he does. He goes in with my good wishes and I am sure that at least we can come out of this attempt, if we do not go in on this occasion, in such a position that in the next few years the decision can be made that we can join Europe and cure once and for all the division between ourselves and the rest of Western Europe which has now become far more important and far more serious and far more divisive than the distinction between Western Europe and Russia.

8.28 p.m.

Mr. John Hynd: I am happy to say that I agree almost entirely with what the hon. Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Miscampbell) said. I was particularly glad to hear him bring up a point which has not been made very firmly, namely, that when we talk about membership of the European Economic Community and at the same time rule out any question of supranational or Parliamentary control of that Community we do ourselves not only an injustice but very great harm to our reputation as democratic Parliamentarians. I should like to return to that point later.
One thing has rather spoiled the atmosphere of this debate. The Leader of the Opposition and the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home) and many of their followers have been guilty of this, in my view. While supporting the Government's application they have sought, by implication, to suggest that the Government do not intend to make a serious attempt to join the Common Market. There have been insinuations of various kinds that there is no sincerity behind the application. If it is the Opposition's intention to try to get this country into the Common Market, this is one of the best ways in which they can best prevent it. If this

spread abroad as the general opinion here, it is not likely to assist the negotiations.
One thing about today's debate about which I am glad compared with yesterday's debate and what preceded it is that we have heard much less today about British conditions. I have never liked this talk about British conditions for entry into the Common Market, still less Labour Party conditions. I can hardly agree when the Government say that they still adhere to the Labour Party conditions but that the present situation has made some of them easier. On the first of these conditions—an independent foreign policy and defence policy—there has been no change. In any case, the issue is irrelevant because there is no common defence policy or foreign policy, or the power to apply one, in the Rome Treaty. This is a non-starter.
A great deal has been said about defence, particularly by the Leader of the Opposition, and the implications in which this country as a member of the Community, enlarged by the Scandinavian countries and probably others, would inevitably be involved for the defence of the Community area. Whether one accepts the de Gaullist conception of a single European defence community, with its own atomic weapons, or a European Community as one leg in a common defence policy with the United States as the other leg, or in whatever form one accepts it, surely those who are afraid of their being involved in defence and foreign policy matters in the Community, even indirectly, mot within the treaty but as partners in the Community, must pause to think what are the implications if these matters are to be discussed with the Community and we are not members.
One of two things will happen in the long run. In the Community of the Six, without Great Britain and other countries, either Germany will predominate, in which case there will be an independent German Army withdrawing from N.A.T.O., supported or not supported by France, or we shall have the ultimate de Gaullist policy of a French-dominated European defence community, with its own atomic weapons, which would ultimately mean that Germany would have to leave NA.T.O. if she wished to be a full member of the Community. Matters would develop in this European sector in


which we should have no say until they might well have reached the kind of situation which has in the past forced this country into the European scene with the most disastrous conditions because we had no opportunity of influencing them before.
I therefore suggest to those of my colleagues who have this preoccupation that they had better think very clearly about what might develop in the Community of the Six in defence matters unless Britain and the Scandinavian countries are members in order to try to influence developments beforehand.
I say nothing about the other so-called conditions of the Labour Party, which I never took very seriously—the planned economy question which has been sufficiently answered in the debate and the question of our E.F.T.A. partnership, which has also been sufficiently answered, except for one point. It has not been stated what was meant by our E.F.T.A. partners having to agree with the other members of E.F.T.A. before entering the Community and whether that implied giving Dr. Salazar a veto on our entry.
I doubt very much whether, even if we gain entry and some of our E.F.T.A. partners enter the Community, Portugal qualifies for membership of the Community, because Portugal is not a democratic country. By the same token, if Spain and the Communist countries were geographically parts of Europe, as France and the other E.E.C. countries are, it is constitutionally not possible to include totalitarian elements in a democratic community. Therefore, Spain, Portugal and the Communist countries will have to modify their practices and accept the principles and practices of a democratic community.
One point which a right hon. Gentleman opposite put to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister seemed to be rather pointless. He said that he wanted my right hon. Friend to make a positive statement that he would try to seek some protection for the interests of Australia and New Zealand. I thought that the position had been made crystal clear by everyone who had spoken from the Front Bench, and even from the Opposition Front Bench, namely, that our European colleagues made these concessions in the Brussels negotiations of 1962. They are

fully aware of the special difficulty attaching to New Zealand in particular, and I am sure that this has been discussed many times during the tentative talks which my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has had on the Continent. I should have thought that everyone would have taken it for granted that New Zealand would receive special attention.
One point has not been mentioned in this context of the Commonwealth. I am thinking of some of the smaller territories, particularly those which are entirely dependent on their sugar crops, whose position will be particularly difficult if we go into the Community. One of our purposes should be to diversify Jamaica's economy once we are members, but the smaller islands have no possibility of diversifying their economies.
One of the things for which we should press is for them to be dealt with by protocols to the Treaty of Rome, in the same way as protocols to the treaty have provided for continued free imports, or preferential imports, as the case may be, to particular countries of the Community of particular commodities. When referring to countries, I am thinking of Germany, France, Italy and Belgium, and when referring to commodities I am thinking of coffee, bananas and so on. These arrangements have been made for the present members of the Community, and from the discussions which I have had—and I have had many—with representatives of members of the Community I do not think that there will be a great deal of difficulty in dealing with this problem.
That leads me to the question of agriculture. A great deal has been said about this, and I shall not, therefore, go into it in detail. I am, however, rather concerned that a great deal has been made about the assumed increase in the price of food which will follow our entry into the Community and the assumed effect which it will have on our balance of payments. I hope that the figures which have been given will not be thrown about as propaganda to try to frighten people about the effects of our joining.
In both cases the figures are subject to qualification. The figures which have been mentioned are based on an impossible concept. It is that we shall sign


the Treaty of Rome, and the whole of the agricultural policy contained therein will descend on us the following day, together with the total levy as it now exists, without any change in the price structure or anything else. There is no question of this happening.
In a very interesting and useful report by P.E.P. some time ago the position was analysed, and the results were not very different from those given by the Prime Minister during the last two or three days. Whatever one may say about a 12 per cent. to 15 per cent. increase in food prices, P.E.P. assumed a 20 per cent. rise in wholesale prices, which would result in a 2½ per cent. increase in food prices spread over a number of years. P.E.P. suggested five, whereas in fact we are likely to get something like six to seven. The total effect on the cost of living would amount to an increase of a fraction of 1 per cent. or about 1 per cent.
The problem is not quite so monstrous as it can be painted, but against that there is one factor which has not been mentioned, and it should be in this context. Under the present agricultural pricing system, we pay subsidies, which are raised by taxes, amounting to, I think, more than £3 million a year.

Mr. Terence L. Higgins: The figure is £264 million, which would represent about 1s. 2d. off the standard rate of Income Tax.

Mr. Hynd: Another figure is £234 million, and there are others. It all depends on the aspect to which one is referring. Let us say that it is between £250 million and £300 million. The P.E.P. report referred to the possibility of an increase of 1s. per head in pensions and 1s. in family allowances. If we were to increase the rate of pensions and family allowances by 5s. per head, which would have a considerable offsetting effect against all these increased food prices, it would amount to about £150 million per annum, as against the £250 million that we at present pay in subsidies. Again, there is no insuperable problem over the lower-paid worker, provided the Government can give us some hint that they will have this kind of solution in mind should the problem ever arise There would still be £150

million or more saved from taxation to be applied in other ways.
The same consideration applies to the question of our balance of payments. Figures between £200 million and £250 million have been quoted, but again, this depends upon the entry of Great Britain, Denmark, Sweden and Ireland—food-producing countries in one case and the biggest market for food in the other—having no impact on the standard target of food prices. The prices with which we are concerning ourselves at the moment are those calculated on the average throughout the Community, based on Duisburg as the centre, but the influx of these new food-producing countries and this great new food-importing market will have an immediate effect on prices, which would mean that prices would soon be different from those that we are thinking of at present.
The figure of the balance of payments takes no account of the fact that the levy is not calculated per head of population or according to national industrial importance; it is a loaded levy, or a modified levy, calculated according to conditions in individual countries. That, presumably, would also be adjusted in view of the fact that we would be the biggest food importing member of the Community. I hope that the Government will have this point very much in mind when they are negotiating on the levy. It is clear that figures concerning the cost of living or balance of payments will be very different from those that we are thinking of at present.
Although the hon. Member for Blackpool, North said quite a bit about it, little has been said by other hon. Members about the fact that this is not an agricultural Community; it is an economic Community. No one has tried to analyse the effect of our entry upon the industrial sector of the Community. I want to take up a point made by the hon. Member for Blackpool, North on the effect on some of our more modern industries, in present circumstances. I want to give an illustration of this as it concerns a very important electronics company. The chairman and managing director of one of our leading exporters of industrial electronic control equipment, with between 80 per cent. and 85 per cent.


of its products going to export, wrote to me saying:
we developed a few years ago an equipment called the Scanatron; the research and development cost was £145,000, our total sales in the United Kingdom to date have amounted to just on £100,000, and our export sales mainly to Europe have amounted to £860,000.
He pointed out clearly that if we are excluded from the Common Market developments of this kind will become quite impossible for his type of firm. That is merely one little straw in the wind.
We should therefore reject entirely any further talk about British conditions for entry. Article 237 of the treaty does not say that a new applicant for membership shall state its conditions for entering the club, but that, on a new State applying for membership, its application will be considered by the Community and the Community will lay down the conditions for acceptance. It is not, therefore, a question of our making conditions, but of our seeking the same kind of consideration and adjustments through the protocols and décalage which have been given to other members and which we recognised in the previous negotiations in Brussels.
Therefore, the invitation by the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire yesterday to the Prime Minister to state categorically that we are prepared to sign the Rome Treaty as it stands was quite unnecessary. It struck me as rather a niggling one. I would prefer the formulation of the Prime Minister yesterday, when he said that the Government would be prepared to accept the treaty if our problems can be dealt with satisfactorily. The Government are prepared to accept the treaty. This is what the treaty says, this is what it offers, so let us stop this niggling talk about whether we will sign on a dotted line which does not exist or whether we will make any conditions.
I should like to mention a speech which has not so far been mentioned, that of the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith), who expressed much concern about the effects of our joining on our domestic laws and court procedures. If he has not already done so, I suggest that he should study carefully the analysis of this matter

given by Lord Stow Hill, better known to most of us as Sir Frank Soskice, in the debate in another place a few months ago.
After examining the treaty very carefully and apply it to the position in this country, Lord Stow Hill came to the conclusion that it would not in the least alter our internal law, that our criminal and civil processes would be left entirely untouched. The only small qualification, he said, would be that, under the Treaty of Rome, British companies and individuals would be entitled to appeal to the European Court on purely economic matters. So the right hon. and learned Member may be reassured on that point, which is important and has not been mentioned before, if he studies that very fine analysis by Lord Stow Hill.
I thought that it was desirable to reply to those one or two points which have been left as loose ends in the debate, as most of the other main points have been adequately covered by other hon. Members. Like the hon. Member for Blackpool, North and my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) yesterday, whose speech I read, although I did not hear it, with great satisfaction, I have been appalled at some of the arguments from this side of the House against our joining the Common Market precisely on the basis of arguments directly contrary to the Socialist conception of these matters, which I have understood so well over the last 50 years or more of my membership of the party.
I am appalled that so many of my colleagues take that this new development towards what, after all, is one of the great ideals of the old Socialist thinkers and pioneers. It was the old Socialist conception of the breaking down of national barriers and the bringing of peoples closer together. We enshrined this idea in our policy statements, and, I believe, in our manifesto at the last General Election, when we accepted the idea of world government, knowing that we cannot achieve a world government suddenly, but only by the progressive elimination of national barriers and bringing together wider and wider groups of peoples with similar interests and aspirations.
That the opposition should come from Labour benches on a matter of this kind runs directly contrary to the policy which


our party has always adumbrated. I was particularly concerned at one thing about the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell), who, incidentally, demanded that we should tell the people the facts and proceeded to refer to a Gallup poll in the Daily Telegraph but refused to let us know the figures which he had before him. Those figures showed, incidentally, a 65 per cent. vote in favour of our joining the Common Market, which was exactly the same percentage as was achieved in the same poll 12 months ago. My right hon. Friend informed the House that he had never changed his stand on this issue and proceeded to quote two early-day Motions in 1951 and 1952 which he had not signed before the Common Market came into operation. He forgot to tell the House, however—I am sorry that he is not now present—that he did sign a Motion in 1956, which was signed by 82 other hon. Members, demanding that the Government should immediately open negotiations for entry to the Common Market. Therefore, when my right hon. Friend talks about telling the people the facts, he had better get the facts right.
What worried me about my right hon. Friend's speech, which we all enjoyed very much, was a point he made, and which we have not heard a great deal about lately, when he warned us about the terrible effect that membership of the Common Market would have on the free movement of workers. I do not know what my right hon. Friend was suggesting we should be afraid of, but it seemed to him to be most sinister.
Again, my right hon. Friend did not say what the treaty states about this. It states in Article 48 that there shall be
the abolition of any discrimination based on nationality between workers of the Member States as regards employment, remuneration, and other working conditions.
It goes on to state:
It shall include the right … (a) to accept offers of employment actually made; (b) to move about freely for this purpose within the territory of Member States ".
The treaty stipulates that in particular the member States shall under this arrangement, with a common programme, encourage the exchange of young workers. That is what the treaty proposes. If we are to tell the people the facts, do not let us frighten them that we will be

flooded by a lot of immature and unemployed Italian workers, Spaniards and others coming into this country to create more unemployment here. What Article 48 does is to safeguard the position of foreign workers in jobs which are actually offered to them and to ensure that they shall enjoy the full standards of employment, social insurance and the rest in the country in which they work.
One of the interesting results of this policy has been the reaction of the hundreds of thousands of Italians, Spaniards, Turks, Greeks and others who have gone to Germany, for example, under this provision and who are working in the German docks and factories, enjoying German rates of wages, including four weeks' holiday with pay, which is one of the standards operating in the Common Market but which we have not yet reached in this country, who are enjoying the principle of equal pay, which we do not have in this country but which is obligatory in the Common Market, and who are enjoying all the rights and protections of German workers. This has had an enormous impact upon their home countries when they return or send back their money and tell the other workers in those countries about their conditions. This has been one of the most important contributing factors to raising the standards of working conditions in some of the more backward areas of Europe, because these men are not going back to some of their former old conditions. I hope, therefore, that the position will be properly reported when this kind of thing is discussed and that we will not be left with a lot of insinuations based upon fiction.
My final comment Is merely an endorsement of what was said yesterday by my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West and this afternoon by the hon. Member for Blackpool, North. Even if this step does not involve us—and here I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Barons Court (Mr. Richard)—in the acceptance of an immediate political Community, even if the decisions that have to be taken are at present limited to purely economic and social matters, none the less those economic and social matters include not only a common policy for agriculture, transport and energy, not only common commercial policies, not only the free


movement of capital and labour, the abolition of all tariff barriers and of Customs duties, the harmonisation of social benefits with all that that implies in taxation and a whole range of matters of this kind. These are politics. This is what politics are about. These are the things we discuss in this House. These are the things that affect the lives of every single citizen in the country—in this case, the European Community.
An unhappy situation we are facing at the present time is that the European Parliament has no powers. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Easing-ton says that if we have to join this Community let us not have any supranational institution or European Parliament or any nonsense like that, I remind him that the supranational institution exists. The Council of Ministers is a supranational institution, and the European Parliament exists; it is there already and it is written into the treaty.
The tragedy is that this European Parliament as a Parliament is unacceptable in its present form to British democrats because it has no power. The only power it has is to remove the whole of the Council, though it has never done that. It cannot even discuss the budget of the Community, which runs into hundreds of millions of pounds, which are got by levies or other means by the citizens of those countries, and yet the so-called Parliament does not even have the power to discuss the budget.
Is this country, with all its background, its history and tradition of Parliamentary government and democracy, as the Mother of Parliaments, as the guiding light to the rest of the world in these matters, to say that it is prepared to enter the European Economic Community, but only as an economic community, that we are to have nothing to do with its Parliament? Or, if we send a token delegation to the Parliament, we are not going to see that the Parliament does have proper democratic powers and does have some control over the executive, and that the citizens of the Community have more representation, direct or indirect, through the Members of the Parliament?
I can assure the House and the country that it is the feeling of most of the

Parliamentarians and others, at least of the five countries, and of many of the French Parliamentarians as well, that British membership to them brings the hope that, along with the Scandinavian countries, with their equal Parliamentary traditions, we will bring a new breath of democracy into the Community; that we will insist in the future on some democratic control; that we will not leave all control of the Community's destinies to the Commission under Dr. Hallstein—I have the deepest respect for them—or the Council of Ministers, concerned with their national interests; that Britain and the Scandinavian countries will give a lead towards a more democratic political Community run by a democratic Parliament having power over the executive.
Without those conditions my enthusiasm would be less, but even more important in my view is that this Community should survive, because the failure of this Community, whether because of its own efforts or for any other reason, can plunge Europe back into the conditions of 1914 and 1939, and we will have been at least partly responsible for that.

9.0 p.m.

Mr. Reginald Maudling: The issues which we have been considering in these two days are, of course, of high national importance. I think it can be fairly said that the debate has measured up to the seriousness of the problems. Many Members have spoken, and many more, I regret to say, for one reason or another have been unable to speak; but I believe, in the number of Members who have caught your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, we have seen a wide range of representative opinion, and we have also heard the many diverse and important issues of economics, of trade, of politics, of defence, discussed from both sides of the House in an atmosphere of seriousness which, I think, is possibly unusual for some of our debates.
Certainly the divisions of opinion which have been shown have cut across party on more than one occasion. Unusual alliances have been formed, possibly only temporarily. Unusual divisions of opinion, some of them most engaging, have taken place, and we have listened to them.
My own impression, from the speeches I have heard and from those that I have read, is that despite the eloquent oratory of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith), and despite the ebullience and vigour of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell), which we enjoyed so much this afternoon, the balance of the arguments has clearly been on the side of those who believed that it is right for this country to try to join the European Economic Community. The balance of the arguments has clearly gone that way. Certainly, when we look at the economic factors, I believe the arguments are really conclusive.
The basic argument, of course, is membership of a large economic unit, with the mass market it provides for British industry, and for modern industry—modern science-based industry is the phrase used in modern jargon—a large market is essential for full efficiency, particularly for research and development, on a scale which we really require.
Mind you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, we must not exaggerate the issues. I have never believed that the choice is one between prosperity and disaster. If we were to fail in this endeavour; if once again we were to be rebuffed; if we do not join the Economic Community, I think it would be a tragedy, but it would not mean disaster. It would not mean poverty or deprivation, because Britain would continue to survive and, indeed, to grow and to prosper, but not to the extent or at the pace at which, in this modern age, we should aim.
Certainly, I am convinced, and have been for a number of years now, that a market on the 250 million to 300 million scale would offer the sort of opportunities required by modern, technologically strong, British industries, manufacturing industries, and agricultural industry.
I was glad to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Torrington (Mr. Peter Mills) earlier this afternoon stress the importance of agriculture and the opportunities for British agricultural exports, for as has been so rightly said, on more than one occasion, British agriculture is an extremely efficient industry in comparison with any of our neighbours or competitors.
Nor should we omit reference to the commercial strength of Britain. Our invisible exports are a very important feature indeed in our total balance of payments. I do not think reference has been made in the course of this debate to the strength of British insurance, British banking, British merchanting. All these factors or features of our economy are strong and highly competitive, and I have no doubt that within the European Economic Community there will be great new opportunities to bring prosperity to this country.
Of course, it is perfectly true, as many hon. Members have so rightly pointed out, that certain parts of our economy, certain parts of agriculture and industry will have to face up to considerable difficulties, such as in E.F.T.A. our pulp and paper people have had considerably increased competition from the Scandinavian industry. It is perfectly true, and this must be weighed in the balance. Equally, there is the real problem, referred to by both the Foreign Secretary and the First Secretary, of the additional burden on our balance of payments that would be imposed by this system of levies on imports. I agree that this figure is terribly difficult to give with any certainty. The First Secretary gave it as between £175 million to £200 million. It might be less in practice, in the changing currents of world trade, the movement of world prices and the comparative levels both internally and externally of the Community and E.F.T.A. prices. This is a very big factor itself, and it is quite right that it should be weighed in the balance.
I believe, taking the disadvantages and advantages, that the advantages clearly are the greater, but to follow, once again, the First Secretary, it is important to pose the question: what would happen if we stayed out? One must always consider the alternatives. It seems to me that for us to face across the Channel the development of a single economic unit on the scale of the United States, but with levels of wages more akin to ours than to American levels, would be a very formidable competitive factor, and would affect our entire trading position, not only in Europe but throughout the world and throughout the Commonwealth. So I believe that the economic


advantages of membership of the Community are quite clearly established.
The political advantages, surely, in the long term are great also. My hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Dodds-Parker) rightly referred to the extent to which Britain in the past decades has suffered from political division and dissent and strife within Western Europe, and it is very much to our interest that we should live in a united Europe. Therefore, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said this afternoon, we shall from these benches fully support the Prime Minister in a genuine attempt to bring together Western Europe into one, single, coherent unity. I was glad that the First Secretary stressed again that this is not solely a question of Britain and the Six but a question of E.F.T.A. and the Six, because we have obligations to our E.F.T.A. companions which are of a solemn character and which we cannot possibly disregard.
But while we support, and will continue to support, the Prime Minister in a genuine attempt to solve this problem, it is right for us as an Opposition to look at the circumstances of this new initiative and try to assess whether it is taken at the right moment and in the right circumstances. I hope that the Prime Minister, in concluding this debate tonight, will deal with some of these problems.
Why has he chosen this particular moment for his new initiative, and what is his position now on the major matters of policy involved? We must recognise that we in this country have already had two rebuffs—in 1958 and in 1963—to attempts to join the European Economic system; I do not think that we can lightly court the possible danger of a third rebuff. When the Prime Minister says, as I believe he said the other night, that the wind is right and the tide is right, I wonder why? What changes have taken place to make this the right moment? What changes have taken place in our economic situation or in the economic situation of Europe? What changes may have taken place in the political outlook of France, or others of the Six, or in the political relations of the United States and Western Europe? Why is this the moment when the tide is right and the wind is right? I hope that the right hon.

Gentleman will explain that, because I believe it to be of very great importance.
Secondly, what does the Prime Minister mean by his reference to the "essential interests" of this country and of the Commonwealth, and what is his attitude to the Treaty of Rome? It is very important to get this issue clarified now. Does he mean to accept the Treaty of Rome, or does he intend to try to negotiate for amendments to it? If the latter is his intention, I must say that it is going back several years in history. In 1957 and 1958, when were negotiating the Free Trade Area, we were negotiating even then on the basis of the Treaty of Rome and trying to find what amendments to it would meet what we then thought to be the essential interests of Britain and the Commonwealth. The subsequent negotiations in Brussels, again, were based on joining the Treaty of Rome.
The Prime Minister must recognise that there is little chance of success of any negotiations that go back to the concept of amending the Treaty of Rome. As my right hon. Friend pointed out with such force this afternoon, the Treaty of Rome, as it stands, is for the countries of the Community the fundamental substratum of their political and economic existence. I urge the Prime Minister to tell us just what are the essential interests to which he referred. He should make that quite clear before this debate ends.
There are two particular points to which I call the right hon. Gentleman's attention. Both were referred to by the First Secretary. The first is the question of economic planning and the second is the question of the common agricultural policy. Where do the Government now stand on their condition No. 4, as it used to be known; the right to plan our own economy? The First Secretary argued this afternoon that nothing in the Treaty of Rome would prevent us from planning our own economy. He said that it would not prevent nationalisation and he certainly said, and I think that he was again right, that it would not prevent us from taking the sort of measures in the development districts to which the House as a whole attaches great importance.
However, he gave no convincing explanation at all of why he disagreed


with what his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister so forcibly said in June, 1963 about the whole concept of the Treaty of Rome; being anti-planning or, at any rate, anti-national planning. The right hon. Gentleman went on to point out, I believe rightly, that the sort of planning envisaged in the Treaty of Rome was designed to achieve the maximum amount of competition in industry. On this point it is important for us to receive a clear statement from the Government about where they stand, to what extent they now consider that the Treaty of Rome is wholly anti-planning and whether they believe that their concepts of planning can be fitted into the terms and regulations of the Treaty of Rome.
On the second point, the common agricultural policy, the First Secretary implied, from the remarks of M. Couve de Murville, that the French would consider adaptations in the regulations of the common agricultural policy. That may or may not be so. It is difficult to be certain. But the fundamental basis of the common agricultural policy is the system of levies, and it was the whole system of levies which the Prime Minister condemned in his famous Bristol speech. This, therefore, is not a matter of adaptation but a fundamental argument, and the Prime Minister must make the Government's position clear tonight.
The phrase "essential interests" is a misleading one, because it either means nothing or too much. Of course, any Government are concerned to protect the essential interests of the country they represent. To that extent, if that is what is meant, it means nothing. What is the alternative meant by "essential interests"—or perhaps the right hon. Gentleman means it to be a platitude and considers that platitudes mean something. [Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman the Foreign Secretary should know. Either it is a platitude or it implies a very rigid position in bargaining. I suggest that a rigid position in bargaining is not what we should have now if we wish to achieve success.
What is essential—remembering that all interests are always relative and not absolute—is the total result. It is essential to obtain a solution which, in sum and in total, is in the interests of this country. I therefore suggest to the Prime Minister that when he talks about the

danger of revealing our hand before the negotiations he should not think at this time too much in terms of detailed negotiations.
Experience in recent years has shown that the details of these matters are not decisive. What will matter above all is the political will throughout Europe to achieve a solution. If one wants to find the answers and if one has the political will to find them, one can find the answer to every problem that is involved. However, experience has also shown that if one does not have the political will to agree one can easily find a problem for every answer.
So I say—and this has been repeatedly emphasised during the debate—that the broad political factors are more important than the details of economic negotiation. The first attempt to form a free trade area with the agreement of all the member countries of the then O.E.C. failed not on any technical, economic difficulty about certificates of origin or agriculture but, ultimately, because of the French political veto and, possibly, also because at that time the Community did not feel sufficiently self-confident to negotiate on a wider European grouping.
Secondly, in the Brussels negotiations under my right hon. Friend the present Leader of the Opposition it was not failure to get agreement on any economic problem that caused the breakdown, but once again the French political decision that in their view the time was not right for British membership of the European Community. So I ask the Prime Minister, what are the new factors which lead him to suppose that the time has now come to reopen this question?
One factor, of course, is the changing position of the British balance of payments and the difficulties often referred to of the position of sterling as a reserve currency and the indebtedness of the United Kingdom. I do not believe that the position of sterling or its rôle as a reserve currency presents any genuine barrier to our membership of the European Community. It is not an obstacle or menace in any way to the Six.
I agree with the Prime Minister that before we enter the Community our economy must be strong and the position of sterling must be sufficiently sure, but the British economy is immensely strong.


In recent years the balance of payments by commercial terms has been positive and substantially positive. We have vast overseas investment and a vast technological base and capacity for scientific management and research which is the envy of Europe. If I wished to be political, I might say that our economy is strong enough to stand up even to two years of the present Government.
Nor is the position of sterling as a reserve currency any real barrier to membership of the Common Market. This should be understood. Sometimes other countries in Europe seem to think that a reserve currency is something which we keep for ourselves as a great asset, but it is not. We are a reserve currency because the situation has developed because people have put money on deposit with us and it has operated in those conditions. There are some advantages in a reserve currency but some disadvantages. The strength of British invisible exports lies not so much in the reserve currency as in the skill and expertise of those in commerce, banking and finance in this country.
The problem is not so much that we are a reserve currency country as that we have a currency of exchange because in recent critical circumstances the main holders of sterling as a reserve currency have been strong holders and they have stood by us. It is clear that there would be an advantage in some funding of sterling balances. This has been talked about in the past. I hope it will be thought of again. Perhaps some beginning might be made in this context with a funding of our indebtedness to the International Monetary Fund. I doubt whether it would be in the interest of the world trading community as a whole if we were to endeavour to run an adequate surplus in the next few years in order to repay that indebtedness out of our current trading balances. This is an opportunity to reorganise the international position of sterling to the benefit of this country and of other monetary authorities of the world as a whole.
The whole problem of sterling and reserve currencies is one which has to be solved anyway. It is not part and parcel of our relationships with the European Economic Community. There must be found some means of supplementing

dollar and sterling as reserve currencies. I do not believe that a return to the gold standard would be any solution. To try to tie the volume of money available to finance world trade to the accident of the amount of gold produced at any period cannot make sense, but some solution must be found to this problem of international liquidity and the position of world currencies. This is something which must be solved anyway and it should not inhibit our intention to join the Community.
The other problem which emerges is the political development of the Community and in particular, as my right hon. Friend said this afternoon, the relationship politically and in defence terms between Europe and the North American continent. We have seen in the last couple of years big developments in the Community. It has grown stronger and therefore, I think, more willing to negotiate, but the final pattern of the Community as between federalism or Europe des états has not been settled. It is of the greatest importance that Britain should be within the Community in order to participate in this process of settling its final shape.
I believe that the answer will lie, as it often does, between the two extremes. I do not accept the federal argument with respect to the hon. Member for Barons Court (Mr. Richard). I think that the proponents of federalism are premature in their views by a very long time; and they have not established the need for federal decision in any of the great issues in which we are talking.
On the other hand, I think that those who support the concept of a Europe des états under-estimate the extent to which an economic union demands common political decisions. I hope that the Prime Minister in answering the debate will deal a little with this point. It seems to me to be of fundamental importance, because we cannot regard membership of the Community as a purely economic problem.
More and more problems of a political character, as the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. John Hynd) pointed out, will arise as a result of economic union. The free movement of goods and the free movement of capital throughout a single economic unit brings up such


questions as a common currency, a common reserve system, and common policies on the pressure of demand. I do not believe that in the long term there can be a completely effective single economic union without in effect having common policies on these major economic matters.
But these are economic matters of political significance, and decision on these matters have a deep political significance. Therefore, we must recognise, and we must be realistic on this, that in joining the European Economic Community we are committing ourselves to a central decision, not necessarily by a supranational parliament, but a central decision by some machinery and in some form on many basic economic questions of considerable political significance.
The other main point I want to deal with is the question of defence, and in particular the relationship between Europe and the United States, to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexley (Mr. Heath) referred this afternoon. I believe that this is perhaps the most important question of all. I remember very well in the earlier negotiations, particularly for the Free Trade Area, how it used to be said that Britain must choose between Europe and the Commonwealth. This was fundamentally wrong, as has been shown, I believe, in recent years. There is a school of thought now which says that Britain must choose between Europe and the United States. This, too, I believe to be fundamentally wrong. I do not entirely agree with the way the Foreign Secretary put it yesterday. I do not think that the phrases he used were exactly attuned to the facts.
What I see is a changing relationship between Europe and North America, within which the participation of the United Kingdom in a European system would play a major part. I think we must all look at a united Europe within the context of an Atlantic community. Surely the time has clearly come to recognise the need for a change in the respective roles of the North American powers and of Europe within the Atlantic Alliance, because of the shifting balance of power, particularly economic power, and because of the changing nature of the threat—moving away from Europe towards the countries east of Suez.
Therefore, I agree that it is important to build up the strength of Europe, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said, to redress the balance between the Atlantic countries and the European countries. We are a partnership. Partners do not have to be absolutely equal in order to be effective partners. It clearly would be a mistake—no one would propose it, I think—to try to build up a European deterrent to duplicate the deterrent of the United States, but within the Alliance surely more emphasis must be placed on the political position of Europe, the economic position of Europe, and the building up of the full economic strength of Europe, because it cannot be right or healthy—I am sure the United States themselves would recognise this—for one particular partner to dominate another, whether in military, political or technological terms.
So we must look at the political issues involved in these talks and these negotiations as an attempt, by achieving British membership of the European Community, to strengthen the Atlantic Alliance and to create a partnership less lopsided than it is at present, a partnership which will endure, a partnership which alone can under-pin security of the West in the years to come.
I have tried to cover what seem to me to be the main issues before the House in this debate. I do not believe that the economic problems are insoluble. We have seen in two sets of negotiations that economic problems can really be solved, but they will never be solved unless there is the will to solve them. The will to solve them will not exist unless the broad basic political and strategic factors have already been discussed and general agreement reached. I hope, therefore, that in the talks he will conduct the Prime Minister will bring in these broad factors from the very beginning.
I hope that, in answering this debate the right hon. Gentleman will make absolutely clear his answer to the two major questions which I put to him at the beginning. First, why does he believe that the time is right and the tide is right? Why has he chosen this moment? Second, what is his definition of the essential interests which must be safeguarded and cannot be given away? Only by embarking upon negotiations on


this candid, open and practical basis can he achieve the success we all hope he will achieve.

9.25 p.m.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): The whole House will agree with a great deal of what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Barnet (Mr. Maudling) has said and will feel that he has again tonight made a very balanced and constructive speech, as he always has done on this subject throughout the years. In some of the points with which he dealt—I am thinking particularly of his observations on sterling, which I felt was an extremely constructive part of his speech—I could note a significant difference in emphasis from what was said by his right hon. Friend the Member for Bexley (Mr. Heath) this afternoon, and even more, perhaps, on some of the defence questions about which he spoke.
I do not think that anyone will complain about that because on this subject, on each side of the House, on front and back benches alike, those who share the same objective will emphasise different aspects of how we are to go in and what the problems that we meet will be.
The right hon. Gentleman asked me a number of questions and I shall try to deal with them in my speech. The one to which he seemed to attach importance was why we felt that the tide was right at this time. This is what we feel. We believe that it is urgent, and we think that it is right now to embark on the policies which we have announced. I was not sure whether the right hon. Gentleman was casting doubt on the timing. For a moment, he seemed to do so. He will recall that his right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, in a most significant speech on the Saturday, before my announcement, stressed the great urgency of the matter and there was not a day to be lost. I think that what we said last week emphasised our agreement with what the right hon. Gentleman said about that at least in his speech at Harrogate.
The tone and temper of the right hon. Gentleman's speech and, indeed, of all the speeches today has been the tone and temper of the debate as a whole. Although I should be the last to be in

any doubt about the depth of emotions raised by this issue, I believe that the debate has never descended into acrimony.
We have been traversing familiar ground, ground beaten flat by the way we trod and retrod the well-worn path in debates three, four and five years ago. To this extent, whatever our different points of view in the House, there are many facts and many arguments about the facts which all of us now take for granted and, therefore, there are many arguments which do not need to be restated in detail as we stated them a few years ago.
The very fact that we have been over this ground so much in the past, however, creates the danger that we might be tempted to feel that not only the arguments relevant to those days, but the facts themselves relevant to those days remain unchanged. There have been a lot of changes during the last three or four years, particularly of facts.
The speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition dealt in an important way with some of the changes of fact which had occurred, some making it easier and some making it more difficult than three or four years ago. Incidentally, I thank the right hon. Gentleman particularly for what he said at the beginning and the end of his speech in wishing us well. He may recall that, in the opening debate of the previous series, on 3rd August, I ended my speech by wishing him well in the negotiations on which he had started.
I thought that the subjects which the Leader of the Opposition covered in his speech in part, but only in part, following the content of the speech of the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home) yesterday, summarised, as did the speech of the right hon. Member for Barnet, the big issues about which we must be concerned in this debate. I shall take the general line of the Leader of the Opposition's speech this afternoon as providing a convenient framework within which the concluding stages of the debate ought to be conducted.
It is true that the right hon. Gentleman began by accusing us of what he called a lack of reality, and suggested that my right hon. Friends failed yesterday to discuss the policy issues with which the French Government and the President of France are principally concerned. I


would have thought that this was very wise. It is, of course, useful and entirely helpful for the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition in particular, with his experience of these matters, and also for other right hon. and hon. Members, to give to the House and the Government their views and interpretations of what are the fundamental issues we have to face, whether dealing with France or with other members of the Community. But I think that it would be unwise of those who have to carry out these discussions to speculate now about these issues in advance of the discussions themselves.
I shall return later to some of the questions raised by the right hon. Gentleman, including the question of recent developments in French policy. The right hon. Gentleman quoted for a moment, as did the right hon. Members for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) and Barnet, some of the things my right hon. Friends or I said in the earlier discussions. It was perfectly fair of them to do so, but I shall try to resist the temptation myself to turn back on the benches opposite the things they said not only in 1961 and subsequently, but also in 1959, when they gave reasons why the then Government could not contemplate negotiations for entry into the Community.
This is, however, relevant to one important question raised on this side of the House—the question of an election mandate. Following the 1959 General Election, we maintained that the Conservatives did not have a mandate, for they had given the electorate their reasons for not going in. We claim that there is a mandate for us today—indeed, right hon. Gentlemen opposite also have such a mandate—to do what we are doing. I quoted last week, as did my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary yesterday, the passage in our manifesto on this question.
Let us take, therefore, another important question—that of the Treaty of Rome which, as the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition emphasised, and as we equally made clear last week, is absolutely fundamental to any negotiations we may be undertaking if the preliminary exchanges during the next two or three months suggest that the terms are right.

There may well be in the treaty—indeed, I think that there are—a number of provisions which, on strict legal interpretation, would, as many right hon and hon. Members feel, cause problems for Britain just as they must cause problems for existing members of the Community. Some of us were concerned four or five years ago about these problems, and none more eloquently or with greater authority than the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith), who outlined many specific references in the treaty.
This, I think, in a sense, is one of the changes that has taken place. In judging a written constitution, it is more important to examine the way in which it works and operates when it becomes a living constitution—to examine the practices which have grown up under it and the manner in which those who have to operate it do operate it, to examine the common law, as it were, rather than the statute law—than to be obsessed by perhaps literal interpretations of the original constitution and its wording.
As far as the Treaty of Rome is concerned, it is a question of convention and the way in which it has worked or looks like working, and this is of great importance for us. Four years ago, we had much less experience of these things and perhaps we could not—certainly not all of us—have foreseen that it would develop in this way.
Then again of importance—and the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition quite fairly referred to this—there was the Luxembourg compromise, which was reached early this year. That is highly relevant to any assessment of how the constitution really works rather than, as I have said, basing oneself on the literal interpretation of the wording. The Luxembourg compromise is not part of the treaty, but it is of the greatest importance to anyone who seeks to examine the way in which the Community, with or without Britain, is likely to operate in future.
Then again, some of us expressed anxieties—I did myself—in the closing weeks of the earlier negotiations on voting provisions. This was a matter on which I do not think the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition had reached final agreement. It worried many of us


because, on a strict reading of the treaty, the relevant clauses could be very difficult for Britain or any other member of the Community even where vital national interests were concerned. Here again, it is relevant to take account of the Luxembourg compromise.
Of course, it is right for the House to draw a distinction between what we might have had in those years, the Six plus Britain, or perhaps plus one or two other countries as well, and what now appears to be a possibility of great value to Britain and also of great value to E.E.C., namely, the fact that a considerably larger Community might emerge as a result of the possible willingness of E.F.T.A. countries to seek to negotiate round about the same time. How many E.F.T.A. countries will feel willing to enter into these negotiations is a matter upon which we may be clearer after the E.F.T.A. conference which is due to be held early next month.
Certainly, and I am here referring to the right hon. Gentleman's question, if Britain is to find conditions which will justify our entering into negotiations, we for our part would very much hope that as many as possible of the E.F.T.A. countries would also find it possible to enter preliminary negotiations as well, whether for full membership or association under Article 238.
I would feel that one of the most difficult problems of all as it seemed three or four years ago, the problem which was one of the famous five conditions, namely, the position of E.F.T.A. neutral countries, looks to be very much changed compared with three or four years ago, while not discounting the importance of the point made by the right hon. Gentleman this afternoon about E.F.T.A. neutrals. What this would mean if other E.F.T.A. countries came in—and there has been a very big change in the attitudes of individual countries of E.F.T.A. to E.E.C.—is that there would have to be changes in the Treaty of Rome and consequential amendments, to put it that way; what I called last week the necessary adjustments consequent on the accession of a new member.
But this has a high degree of relevance to the problem to which I referred,

the problem of majority voting and the question of the two-thirds majority. I am not here suggesting—it is the last thing that I want to suggest—that there should be any question of E.F.T.A. countries entering the Common Market as a bloc always expected to vote the same way, providing one another with what has become familiar in another context as the blocking third. That is not the way in which we would look at it, and I do not think that it would be productive of benefit for either the Community, or ourselves if we become a member, or for our E.F.T.A. partners if they do.
But what might easily develop—and this would be very healthy—if we moved into a phase of majority voting would be a regular practice of cross-voting, as it might be called, between the original E.F.T.A. members and the original E.E.C. members, the partners changing on particular issues. This, I am sure, would be to strengthen and not weaken the Community and, therefore, some of my anxieties about voting of three or four years ago seem very much less now than they did then.
It is considerations such as this which enabled me last week, on behalf of my right hon. Friends—and I think that this has been recognised by most commentators both inside and outside the House as basic to what I said last week—to say:
… the Treaty of Rome is not in itself or necessarily an impediment. … It need not be an obstacle if our problems can be dealt with satisfactorily, whether through adaptations of the arrangements made under the treaty or in any other acceptable manner."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th November, 1966; Vol. 735, c. 1546.]
The Leader of the Opposition said today that we must be prepared to make it clear that we accepted the treaty and that we accepted arrangements, made since the treaty was signed, under the treaty, particularly for the agricultural programme—and he stressed this and very fairly said, showing more realism than his right hon. Friend the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire, that it might be right to wait until the exchanges of the next three or four months were completed. What I have said, and what right hon. and hon. Members have said, about the Treaty of Rome was right, and I think that it was right for us to say what we have said at this stage. But I


think that many hon. Members will feel, when they consider this further, that another of the basic points raised, for example, by the right hon. Member for Barnet and many other speakers, is that about matters affecting agriculture, which are of the very essence, the very warp and woof of the discussions which we shall be entering into. But it is much too early for us in the House or elsewhere to enter into any categorical declarations.
The right hon. Gentleman himself said that while, during the negotiations in which he was engaged three or four years ago, the structural basis of the agricultural programme was not called in question by him at the time—even though it scarcely existed and was only an embryo—he felt it right then to propose a number of supplementary provisions, for example, those which we often debated in those days, about the agricultural position of the Community as a whole and of member countries of the Community.
Of course, these questions could at the end of the day be expected to have a big effect on prices, levies and trade. But, at any rate, the right hon. Gentleman made one valuable point, that there is room for discussion. That is what he said. But he must not expect us necessarily to accept that where he has drawn the line as to what is negotiable or not negotiable must be accepted for the future as he thought it right to accept three or four years ago, although I do not for a moment underrate the enormous importance attached by E.E.C. members to the structure of the agricultural programme of the Community.
As I made clear in an Answer last week, and as my right hon. Friend made clear again this afternoon, it would be wrong for us to underrate the implications for us of the agricultural policy, at any rate at present prices. I have given the best estimates we can give about them, although I made clear, and my right hon. Friend underlined today, that any such estimates must be qualified by future movement in the prices fixed by the Community as well as future movements in world prices.
I hope that the House will agree that it would be most unwise and inimical to the common purpose which so many of us have expressed in this debate if I were to be drawn further or pressed into conducting pre-negotiations in the House with

hon. Members, none of whom, however authoritative and experienced, claims to be speaking on behalf of those with whom we shall be having the exchanges. I believe, as I have said, that their interpretation of the points to which importance will be attached by the countries which we shall be visiting was extremely illuminating and helpful, particularly what the right hon. Gentleman said today.
If I were to state in detail our position on all the important issues, and what those issues are—and some of them were fairly outlined by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary yesterday—I think that one thing would be certain. Suppose that I were to respond to the question which I have been asked, "Exactly what is your sticking point on agriculture? What are you prepared to negotiate?" I think that our friends with whom we shall be shortly negotiating would inevitably say, "Thank you very much. You have been carried so far by the House of Commons. Now we will start the real negotiations and see how much further you can go". I should not have a lot of respect for them if I did not think that this was likely. The right hon. Gentleman said today that they would be concerned with their interests as we must be concerned with ours.
During the previous negotiations, the Leader of the Opposition made this very plain. We remember that he used to come to the House and give us helpful information every time he came back from a fresh round of negotiations in Brussels. He told us as much as he thought it right to tell us having regard to the progress of the negotiations. Time and again he refused to make available to the House what he had already said to the Community, particularly his opening statement. We pressed him very hard on this, and he said, "No". Finally, it leaked abroad, certainly through no fault or responsibility of his, and he had to give it to the House.
The right hon. Gentleman took the view up to then that something he had already said in Brussels should not be published. How much more, therefore, would he have taken the view before he had said something in negotiation that it would be wrong to be drawn on it and to say exactly in the House where he might go, where he might give a little and where he might have a sticking point. Although he made these statements, he was


always very careful about how much he said and would not be drawn.
In 1962, my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) asked the right hon. Gentleman a detailed point about Commonwealth trade. He replied:
No negotiator can be expected to announce in public his minimum terms for agreement on any particular subject.
I thought that that was right. It is a fair answer for me to give the right hon. Gentleman.
In answer to a supplementary question by my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington he said:
In his time the right hon. Gentleman has carried out a good many negotiations. I cannot believe that he ever announced in public what his minimum terms would be.
and, answering the latter part of my right hon. Friend's question, he said:
… We have every confidence that we shall not be outmanoeuvred in the negotiations."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th April, 1962; Vol. 658, c. 479.]
The right hon. Gentleman was right to give those answers, and for that reason he, I know, understands why it would be foolish and against the interests of all of us to answer some of the questions put to me by his right hon. Friend yesterday and, indeed, by the right hon. Member for Barnet.

Mr. Stanley R. McMaster: In carrying out these negotiations, will the right hon. Gentleman bear particularly in mind the very harsh effects in an area of high unemployment like Northern Ireland which a rise of 10 to 15 per cent. in the price of food can have?

The Prime Minister: I really think that it would have been enough if the hon. Gentleman had just nodded—we knew that that was what he was going to say—and I would have nodded back my full agreement with the point made by him.
I now turn to another major issue raised by the right hon. Gentleman. He put it in terms of what he thought would be a central issue in the mind of the President of France. I do not know whether this is so, but it is an issue of central importance, namely, Britain's industrial, economic and monetary position. I do not think that I can improve on what the right hon. Member for Barnet said tonight. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition

referred to the money that we owe to the I.M.F. The answer to all this is part of the wider problem which we all recognise, that, as I said a week ago, our decision about timing must depend on the speed with which we can develop a strong and healthy economy, including, particularly, a balance of payments surplus sufficient to meet our obligations abroad.
There may be arguments in this House, of course, about economic measures—and so there should be—but I believe that abroad there is no doubt whatsover about the determination of Her Majesty's Government to put the country right and to get into a balance of payments surplus—and not only about our determination but about our ability. Both the right hon. Gentleman and I, as former Presidents of the Board of Trade, would be unlikely to draw excessive conclusions from a single month's trading figures. But the drive of the past month or two in exports, and after all the qualifications which have been made by the Board of Trade in issuing the figures, imports, too, show that we are moving in the right direction. They show, too, that we cannot afford to let up until our viability is ensured. This is the best answer to the point which the right hon. Gentleman raised.
The right hon. Gentleman raised the question of our position within the sterling area, and the question of sterling balances. I entirely agree with the answer given by his right hon. Friend in the speech which we have just heard. I particularly agree with what he said. These are vitally important questions, certainly to the discussions and to the ultimate negotiations, but they are not themselves mainly matters for negotiation in Brussels. What has been said by the right hon. Gentleman in pressing the importance of this really lends additional emphasis to the importance of the discussions within the I.M.F. and the Group of Ten, and, as the House knows, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has played a leading part in working towards a solution of the world's liquidity problem.
I think that these are not all necessarily questions for negotiation in Brussels, but progress on liquidity and on these questions is highly relevant to these negotiations. I believe that our friends in Europe could make a great contribution in reaching a speedy settlement of the difficulties, and I hope that


any discussions which we have on Common Market questions will help to bring home to them the wider importance of a forward move in world monetary affairs.
I cannot think of many statements more helpful in these matters than the statement which we have just heard from the right hon. Member for Barnet, and I should like to ask his right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition to associate himself fully with what his right hon. Friend said. The right hon. Gentleman can be helpful sometimes. He is not always so. A few days ago he was reported—he will know this—as forecasting an early weakening of sterling, which he seemed to consider inevitable.
The right hon. Gentleman must stop doing this. I suggest to him that he really should listen to his right hon. Friend, who takes a much more national and less of a party view on these things. I think that I have a right to ask this of the right hon. Gentleman, and I am all the more perturbed because his chief adviser, sitting near to him, does not agree. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will listen to his deputy, and not to his much more inexperienced adviser.
I think that there is one text which we could all agree for these speeches—and the point was made by the right hon. Member for Barnet—the fact that this would carry great conviction in Europe and elsewhere if it was said a bit more loudly by us all that our assets in these countries overseas far exceed our total liabilities, £ for £, indeed exceed them by thousands of millions. I now come to the third—[Interruption.] I said that in September, 1964, when we fought on a deficit that we believed was only £400 million and not £800 million.
I now come to the third of the right hon. Gentleman's points, which he summarised under the heading of defence and political arrangements. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Peter Walker) can follow his usual practice of issuing three statements from his home tonight. If he had wanted to say anything he should have sought to catch Mr. Speaker's eye.
I come to the third point, concerning defence and political arrangements. I hope that my intervention in the right hon. Gentleman's speech this afternoon made clear what I was meaning and what

I was not meaning in the answer I gave to my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) last week. My right hon. Friend and many of us were never clear, four years ago, whether the then Government, in their negotiations, accepted what was a strongly held view within the Community in those days, that acceptance of the Treaty of Rome meant an automatic acceptance of movement to a political community covering all aspects of foreign affairs and, finally, a European defence community as a separate entity from N.A.T.O.
I remember telling the House, four years ago this week, that I had heard Professor Hallstein telling the N.A.T.O. Parliamentarians that the Economic Community was only the first stage of a three-stage rocket, the second being a political and the third a defence community.
What I was trying to say to my right hon. Friend a week ago was that the approach on which we have now embarked carries with it no implication about an ultimate federal system in Europe, or a defence system, and contains and involves no commitments of a supranational character beyond those required within the Treaty of Rome for the purposes of the European Economic Community itself.
But as I told the right hon. Gentleman this afternoon—because this has been misunderstood and it may have been my fault—this does not mean that defence is not of the greatest importance in the individual talks that we shall be having with each of the Six countries. All of us here have a common interest in European defence, and all in Europe have, even if there are still fundamental differences in Europe about certain questions, including some of those that we have been recently discussing in N.A.T.O. Our view is that Europe must play its full part within our collective alliance without hiving itself off into a separate defence community. I think that that it what the right hon. Gentleman meant.
It would be a great mistake to go into details now about everything that we shall be discussing in the separate European capitals. I listened intently to the right hon. Gentleman today to hear what he was really suggesting about this. He began by saying that in his time—in the negotiations four years ago—two views were held about the political and defence


issues. They were what he called the view of the Five plus ourselves and the view of France.
I was not too sure from what the right hon. Gentleman said this afternoon how far he had shifted his position to a point where he would now feel closer to the French position than that of the Five. I was not sure whether he was suggesting that on all these defence matters we should accept—or get very much closer to—the French view, so as to avoid what he must have felt as the very great tragedy of January, 1963. He said then, and he said again this afternoon, that the French Government's decision at that time was political in character. I was not clear this afternoon whether he felt that to avoid a repetition we should get very much closer to established French views on defence and state our position before we go to Paris.
Suggestions seem to have been coming in the past week from, I feel, Conservative quarters, that a major change in international nuclear policy will be required. It is even being suggested in some quarters that it is becoming Conservative policy that we should move from our existing nuclear relationship with the United States—the nuclear dependence that we inherited from right hon. Gentlemen opposite—to a position of closer nuclear relationship with France.
There has even been talk—and we should like to hear the right hon. Gentleman's position on this—of an Anglo-French nuclear deterrent. I agree with what the right hon. Member for Barnet said about the question of a separate nuclear deterrent in Europe, which we believe would be a fundamental danger to any hope of understanding with the East and a divisive and weakening factor within N.A.T.O.
There was one other thing about which I was not clear, but in which most of us were extremely interested. His own profession of European faith and the reasons which he had for it, towards the end of the speech, I thought, was very moving. We could almost hear the wind whistling through those hectares of high-priced wheat when he mentioned them. It was interesting, too, that he was talking about the need for high wheat prices in Europe as compared to what he thought were

the exceptionally low prices in Canada and Australia. He talked of these things not as one of the prices which we might have to pay for the other undoubted advantages of going into the Community, but, as my right hon. Friend said, he seemed to regard them almost as right in themselves, that we need high prices in European agriculture as an essential element in building an economic balance between Europe and America.
One thing I must emphasise as we start—as we are obviously starting—with the good will of the greater part of the House on what we have proposed. The vitally necessary condition of advance is that entry into Europe, if our soundings show that this is possible, will be of great benefit to this country and to Europe as a whole—we can contribute as well as gain—if, and only if, by our own efforts, we succeed in building a strong economy in Britain.
I think that we have all agreed that the very necessary monetary and fiscal restraints to deal with the serious balance of payments with which we have been contending do not of themselves provide the answer, that the answer must lie in structural and physical changes in British industry, in modernisation and innovation and changes in industrial attitudes. That is true—I cannot agree more with the right hon. Member for Barnet—whether we go in or whether, finding ourselves unable to secure a basis for negotiations, we have to seek another type of grouping or whether we have to accept, with all that it would mean, a policy of "going it alone".
I have been much less impressed by the natural argument for entry based on the so-called "cold wind of competition". I have never thought that there was much in the natural argument, but many do. I have been much more impressed by the much more exciting concept of a market large enough for our great technological industries to be able to expand and develop. But even here, we cannot approach it in a spirit of complacency. It does not just happen.
If we go into the E.E.C., this in itself will not solve our problems. The British people alone will hold the key to success and even the vastly greater market opportunities for our technological industries will not accrue to us without very special


effort and industrial reorganisation. If we are talking about a large market in Europe, we may not be able to afford the present degree of fragmentation of our own industrial structure, which might have been inevitable in conditions of our own much smaller market, but which may be detrimental to the efficiency which we will need to compete effectively in Europe. If we are thinking of gearing ourselves to a market of 300 million people—more than the American scale—we must recognise that there are far too few firms of that scale. In chemicals, there is only a proportion of the total in America, and in steel—I could give the figures—and the same applies to motor cars.
I referred at the Guildhall—this was quoted this afternoon—to this point, that we do not as our object seek entry into a "rich man's club", regardless of the opinions of others. As I said the other evening, at a time when we are having to count every penny of aid to the Commonwealth and elsewhere, it is right to point to what the E.E.C. has done in the provision of aid so far. Total aid, bilaterally and through the Community, has been running for the last two years at only a little below 1,500 million dollars, over £500 million, a year. My right

hon. Friends and others have referred to the deep interest of many African Commonwealth countries in the possibility of association with the E.E.C., which is shared by other Commonwealth countries outside Africa.
These are some of the reasons why the Government have decided to embark on this adventure—a perilous one, according to my right hon. Friend, exciting, as other hon. Members would feel, but, as we all agree, an adventure. I said last week that we mean business, and while reserving, as we must, to the Government and to the House the ultimate decision, when, after our forthcoming exchanges, we are better able to judge the position, I interpret the two-day debate which has now ended as an indication that not only the Government but the British Parliament mean business.

Mr. Neil McBride: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

ESTIMATES

Sir Henry d'Avigdor-Goldsmid discharged from the Estimates Committee; Mr. Humphrey Atkins added.—[Mr. McBride.]

INDUSTRIAL TRIBUNALS (SELECTIVE EMPLOYMENT PAYMENTS)

10.1 p.m.

Sir John Hobson: I beg to move,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Industrial Tribunals (Selective Employment Payments) Regulations, 1966 (S.I., 1966, No. 1231), dated 23rd September, 1966, a copy of which was laid before this House on 5th October, be annulled.
There is another Prayer, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in respect of exactly similar Regulations, S.I. 1966, No. 1232, affecting Scotland, in almost precisely similar terms. I do not know whether it would be for your convenience and that of the House if we were to discuss that second set of Regulations at the same time.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Eric Fletcher): If the House agrees, it will be convenient for both sets of Regulations to be discussed together.

Sir J. Hobson: I am obliged, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
These are procedural Regulations which affect the procedure by which the citizen may attempt to establish a claim for refund of the Selective Employment Tax—or for a refund plus a premium if he comes within that category—when the Minister acting on behalf of the Government refuses to make such a payment and the citizen considers that he is entitled to have such a payment.
In the majority of cases, the Minister concerned would be the Minister of Labour. One must observe that these Regulations are made by the Minister of Labour himself to affect the rules of the game in which he will play a substantial, if not always the leading, part. It is, therefore, important that we should scrutinise with care the rules which the Minister is laying down for a game in which he will usually be the defendant.
These Regulations are of great importance because they affect the whole question of the procedure by which these important questions will come up for decision, because it is on the claim for refund of Selective Employment Tax, or

for a refund plus premium, that the whole bite of the S.E.T. is to be found. It is in those cases where a citizen does not get any refund, or any refund and premium, that the bite of the S.E.T. falls upon the individual citizen. Therefore, it is of great importance for citizens that one should ensure that the procedure by which their claims are tried is fair, precise and in accordance with the House's idea of what is just.
In large cases, tens of thousands of pounds may well be at stake. In many other cases, while small sums may be at stake, it may be the difference between liquidity and bankruptcy for individual traders whose cases are under consideration and whose claims are being put forward. It has been said that justice is secreted in the interstices of procedure, and procedure can make the whole difference between a successful and an unsuccessful claim.
My first question to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour, who is to reply to the Prayer, is whether she has considered whether these Regulations are intra vires or whether they may not be ultra vires. They purport to be made under Section 46 of the Redundancy Payments Act, 1965. The only relevant power under that Section is in subsection (1, e.) That power can only be used with respect to
proceedings to determine any question which, by or under any statutory provision passed or made after the passing of this Act"—
that is, after 5th August, 1965—
is directed to be referred to and determined by a tribunal as defined by this Act".
The important words are:
is directed to be referred to".
After reading Section 7(5) of the Selective Employment Payments Act, 1965, I would have said that there was no direction. It merely says that if any question arises the employers may require the question to be referred to the industrial tribunal. We get in different terms the very same point in other statutory provisions where it is expressly provided that where any question arises it shall be referred to the industrial disputes tribunal and I should have thought that Section 7(5) merely gives an employer an option to go to the industrial


tribunal or to go to the ordinary courts if he so desires.
It merely says he may go to the tribunal. Certainly, it does not direct that he shall. He, then, having some option or discretion whether he will or will not go, I would have said there is certainly nothing under the terms of Section 46, from which the power to make these Regulations is alone derived, which enables regulations to be made, because Section 7(5) of the 1966 Act does not contain a requirement and direction for reference.
This was a point which I drew to the attention of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury during the passage of the Selective Employment Payments Bill and he told me he was grateful for it. I do not think that he understood it, because he put down another Amendment which dealt with a point different from the one which I raised. Owing to the hurry of passing the Selective Employment Payments Bill we did not get round to dealing with this point, so I would ask the hon. Lady how she puts the argument that these are Regulations which she has power to make under the 1966 Act.
It will be remembered that in Committee on the Selective Employment Payments Bill the Opposition proposed that the very important questions of the right to repayment should be decided by the ordinary courts of law—perhaps an old-fashioned view, but I should have thought that when important issues of fact or law arise between a citizen and the Government the ordinary courts are not bad places to have them decided. But the Government rejected that view and said, "No, these questions have to be decided by the industrial tribunals" and insisted that a number of the vital questions which will arise should be so decided. We have, therefore, in both these Statutory Instruments a definition of the questions which the industrial tribunals, assuming the Regulations are intra vires, are to decide.
The first one is whether the business is an establishment which is either within Section 1, which entitles one to a refund plus premium, or within Section 2, which entitles one to a refund only, or is not within Section 1 or Section 2 at all, and, therefore, does not entitle one to anything

and one has lost one's money and does not get it back.
Now, the question which the Industrial Tribunal has first to decide is whether a business is an establishment. It does not seem to be a very relevant question. Establishments are premises. They are not businesses at all, and repayments are made in respect of establishments, and the register is a register of establishments, and the Minister can only remove an establishment and not a business from the register.
I realise that the question is only picked up from the Act which was not amended or put in proper shape, but yet we find that one of the things which the tribunal, under these Regulations, has to decide is whether a business is an establishment, whereas, of course, we know the establishment is a set of premises. Therefore, the question seems a bit odd, though I think it probably conforms to the way the Act was originally drafted.
Secondly, it has to decide whether a register should be restored to the register kept by any Minister. Thirdly, the date of the first registration on the register if there is a dispute. Fourthly, the question as to the amount to be repaid in any case. These are the questions to which these procedural Regulations are to apply when the tribunal is considering them.
There are two queries I should like to ask the hon. Lady about the scope of these Regulations. The first is that the Regulations appear not to apply to any reference of any dispute as to whether an establishment which has been removed from the register and which the Minister has agreed to restore to the register shall be restored as at the date proposed by the Minister or at some earlier date as requested by the citizen.
This is a question which arises under Section 7(3) of the Act, the question whether it should be restored to within the terms of the procedure Regulations, but there seems to be nothing in the Regulations about any dispute where it is agreed there should be a restoration. There is no agreement as to the date from which the restoration should take place. Would the Minister say whether she agrees that I am right, or give her views on the matter, and say whether anything should be done about this point?
Secondly, it appears—I may be wrong—that if a question arises relating to a person who is employed to work in England, and that work is carried out from an establishment in Scotland, the English tribunal can make decisions about register ability of the Scottish establishment, and vice versa, and, indeed, the English and Scottish tribunals might come to different decisions about the same establishment in different cases affecting different questions. I dare say that that is inevitable. I dare say that this is the convenient way.
It is possible for the English tribunal to decide a question whether or not a Scottish establishment should or should not have been registered in Scotland. If that is so, how does one get uniformity between decisions of the English tribunals and the Scottish tribunals?
The main point which I desire to make is criticism of the rules of procedure, which are found in the Schedule. This is the real substance of the orders. I should like to make my criticism under heads. Firstly it will be noted that all the proceedings, whether they come frome England or Wales, have to be directed to a central office of industrial tribunals in London. I understand from the Financial Secretary of the Treasury that arrangements are being made after the first application for the subsequent interlocutory proceedings to be dealt with at Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham and Newcastle, leaving the whole of South Wales and South-West England still to be dealt with from London. Many questions affecting farming and forestry will arise under the Regulations. The whole of the agricultural areas are being left to be dealt with in these few major urban centres and not in any country district.
Secondly—and this is a very major criticism indeed—the rules provide that an applicant must state his case on the proper forms to the tribunal and then send it to the responsible Minister; but there is absolutely no provision that the responsible Minister shall at any time before the hearing state his case to the tribunal or to the applicant employer.
I regard this as grossly unfair. One knows that even in the county court one is expected to put in a defence in eight days, and even the Crown has to comply with that. If the defendant

doesn't put in his case in eight days, the county court can order that he shall do so. Yet under these Regulations the court cannot do anything about it, and there is not a single provision that the Minister, at any stage in the proceedings, before the hearing, shall state what is his case or what are the issues.
The result is that the hearing will come on without the issues properly being defined. The employer will have no idea of the evidence he might have to bring to meet the case which he may have to deal with from the Minister, or the evidence he will have to abut in the defence which the Minister proposes to put forward. He will not know what arguments he should be prepared to meet or what cases he should have prepared himself with in order to meet particular points from the Minister. If there is an appeal, the whole of the proceedings will start on the basis that only one side of the case in the decision of the tribunal is stated, and that of the other side is not.
My third criticism is that the Minister can ask the tribunal, apparently by letter, to order the employer to give further particulars not only of the facts of the employer's case—and that is quite normal—but also of the contention on which the employer relies. That is very unusual indeed. I have never heard of anybody having to give particulars of their line of arguments and contentions. Conversely, the employer can obtain no such remedy against the Minister or get from him the facts on which the Minister relies, or the contention he intends to put forward. That, again, is an inequality between the parties appearing before an independent tribunal.
Fourthly, these interlocutory requests for particulars of his case and contention need not even be notified to the employer. The Minister can send a note to the tribunal, which need not give then the employer any opportunity to argue the matter, to refute the suggestion, or to say that it is unnecessary to make the ex parte order against the employer, which the employer, under these Regulations, cannot apply to set aside. It seems to me to be an extraordinary provision and grossly unfair to the employer that an ex parte application order can be made against him without his ever being able to do anything about it after the order


is made. That is unfair as a method of bringing a case for trial before a tribunal. Fifthly, the tribunal may, on the application of a Minister, order discovery of documents against the employer. That is quite a normal pre-trial provision in any judicial process, but it is a bit unusual when only one side can get that remedy and not the other. Here, once again, the employer can get no such remedy of discovery against the Minister. It might not often be necessary, it might be that in the majority of cases the Minister would not have any documents that were relevant, but can anyone say that there will never be a case when the citizen ought not to have discovery against the Minister on the documents in the Minister's possession?
Records of inspection, agricultural returns and a host of other documents of the past history of the establishment which are in the possession of the Minister, reports made for him by his inspectors, will all be highly relevant in the matter at issue between the citizen employer and the Minister of the Crown.
My sixth criticism is that the tribunal may grant an ex parte order for the production of documents at any time against a person not a party to the proceedings and can do so, as I say, without the third party against whom it is made having any opportunity at all to argue about it. This, also, is a rather unusual process. It is well known in the ordinary courts of law that one cannot get discovery against documents of a person who is not a party to the actual proceedings. As far as I can see, there is no right for the individual who is not a party to the proceedings to apply to the tribunal to set aside the order that the tribunal may have made on the ex parte application, in this case, of either the employer or the Minister.
I should like to know what justification there is for a departure from the usual rules of proceedings, both in the High Court and county court, under which third parties are not forced, at the instance of the other parties, to give such discovery before the hearing of all their documents when not parties to the suit.
My seventh query and criticism of these Regulations is that the right to apply to set aside an order for discovery which the Minister has obtained against the citizen is strictly limited to the time within which

the order is to be obeyed. If through no fault at all of the employer—for example, if the Post Office did not deliver the thing in time, or the tribunal sent it to the wrong address, or for any other reason which is quite outside the control of the citizen, he gets an eight-day notice and cannot comply within the eight days, he will not be able after the end of the eight days to have the order set aside.
We all know the great injustices that can be effected by strict limits in which there is no discretion for the courts to do what they think is fair and just. In every other instance there is a provision by which the court can extend the time if it thinks that to be fair, and I cannot see why, if the tribunal thinks it fair, the time given to the citizen employer should not be extended. But the provisions are so drawn that if by accident, or any circumstance outside the control of the citizen employer, he has not made application for extension of the time, the Regulations give no power of any sort or description to remit, delay or set aside the order, even though the tribunal might have been persuaded that it was obviously right so to do.
Eighthly, if the tribunal does decide that notice of an application under Rule 3 or Rule 11 should be given to the other party before its decision is taken, then the only right of that other party is to submit a written objection. The rules provide that in certain cir-circumstances the tribunal may say, in effect, "Before we make an order we will hear the other side"—but that does not go very far because it merely allows the other party to send in a written objection.
This means that the other party sends in a document saying, "I object for this or that reason" and the result is that the whole of the interlocutory process of, perhaps, extremely important matters that may involve difficult questions of law or fact are conducted by correspondence without any provision for a contentious argument coming before the tribunal. The result is that the tribunal must decide on this basis on very difficult and, perhaps, nicely balanced questions between the Minister and the citizen.
As a result of this, we will have one person writing to the tribunal giving his


objection. The tribunal will say, "Do you have an objection?" and the citizen will reply, "Yes, I have". Following that, the citizen will send, on half a sheet of paper, what he considers to be his objection and the tribunal will decide one way or the other. That cannot be said to be a satisfactory method of proceeding in every case.
I agree that in many cases—if not a substantial proportion of them—this may be a perfectly satisfactory procedure. However, in an issue involving large sums of money and difficult questions of law, in addition to high questions of principle on the interpretation of the Act, it seems wrong that no provision whatever should be made for there to be proper argument and discussion before the tribunal makes these important interlocutory orders which will be the foundation of the procedure on which justice is expected to be done.
These are Regulations made by the Minister of Labour and laying down the procedure by which the citizen can resolve a dispute which will normally be with the Minister of Labour, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food or the Department of Agriculture in Scotland. They are, therefore, Regulations in which the Minister is laying down the rules of the game which he will usually be playing. We say that they are unfairly weighted against the citizen. They favour the Minister and allow him to play the game with the cards close to his chest and without giving anything away, whereas the employer-citizen is in the position of having his cards on the table at the request of the Minister and on the order of the tribunal.
We believe that that is unfair and wrong and we hope that the Minister will take the Regulations away and, in the light of what we have said, redraft them to redress the balance.

10.24 p.m.

Mr. Charles Doughty: I support the powerful arguments adduced by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Sir J. Hobson).
We must start from the beginning when considering this matter. We are, after all, discussing the S.E.T. Regulations which, hon. Members will recall, were

brought forward in the Budget although introduced by the Minister of Labour. We are, in fact, discussing a taxation arrangement which is not a trifling one, because the payments under S.E.T. are extremely large; and some firms have said that they are crippling.
All taxation is unpopular, but this tax is one of the most unpopular ever introduced. This is not one of those things that can be a matter between employer and employee. Essentially, it is taxation. These matters have always been decided, throughout our history, by the courts of the land and many cases have been taken right through to the House of Lords for a decision to be given on what the taxation laws mean; and very often it is difficult for such a decision to be arrived at.
Often they are very difficult, I assure hon. Members. Yet in the Redundancy Payments Act, which is not a taxation matter but a matter of payments put into a redundancy fund, there is a Section which says that subsequent references may be made to the tribunal. The whole of the order is ultra vires and one has to look at what will happen in a discussion in respect of Selective Employment Tax. I call it Selective Employment Tax advisedly, because that is what it is.
It will go before an industrial tribunal. The worthy gentlemen—and, for all I know, ladies—who sit on those tribunals to consider questions referred to them will give their decisions on them with their customary ability, but if this Order goes through they will be called upon to decide questions of taxation to which they are unaccustomed. They will reply to the best of their ability, but their decisions can be only those given by people not used to making decisions of this kind.
This procedure ought never to have been applied to taxation questions, which should be left as in the past to the courts to decide and to interpret. They should decide whether the reluctant taxpayer should pay or should not pay and—more important—whether he should get the refund of premiums to which, rightly or wrongly, he thinks he is entitled.
Assuming that the order is passed, when one looks at the regulations to be made one sees that they are entirely


one-sided. When the Revenue authorities and the taxpayer have a dispute and go to law one can at least say that the regulations are not one-sided. The Revenue authorities and the taxpayer—leaving financial questions out of the matter—are on an equal footing. There can be mutual discovery and there must be discovery pleadings. Each side sets out its arguments for the other side to examine and they are tied down in the hearing to the matters already raised. That is fair to both sides, but here it is entirely different. The Minister is not obliged to disclose before the hearing by the tribunal, which has no experience of tax matters, what the contentions of the Minister are.
Put yourself, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in the position of someone arguing the case on behalf of a taxpayer, a lawyer briefed for the purpose. He goes before the tribunal totally unaware of the contentions he will have to meet although he has had to disclose to the Minister, the opposing party before the tribunal, what his contentions are and the full facts on which they are based. Not only that, but if the Minister should think that the contentions have not been sufficiently disclosed, without giving any notice to the applicant, he can, by ex parte means, even by written application, get an order that the applicant should make further disclosure of facts and without his having the slightest opportunity of objecting to the order being made or giving grounds or reasons why he objects and why the tribunal should not make the order. Is this justice? If it is, it is a different kind of justice from what I have been used to during the many years that I have practised in the courts.
These are just a few of the reasons why I say that this is not a tribunal for deciding tax questions and that, if these orders go through, and the tribunal is given these duties, the odds are unfairly loaded against the applicant taxpayer and in favour of the Minister who is, in fact, the Chancellor of the Exchequer but, for curious reasons of which the House is aware, is the Minister of Labour in name. It is contrary to the spirit of justice to which people have been accustomed in this country ever since we have had a taxation system. I hope that the Regulations will not be approved.

10.31 p.m.

Mr. Antony Buck: The whole of this legislation relating to the Selective Employment Tax may be regarded as having been born in lunacy and ending here tonight in inadequacy. Even looked at from the point of view of the hon. Lady the Parliamentary Secretary, it would seem to me that the Regulations are totally inadequate because, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Sir J. Hobson) has pointed out, their very validity must be in doubt and, even if they appear to be intra vires, it is doubtful whether they exclude, as intended by the Government, the rights of the courts to deal with these matters.
They are also grossly unfair, as has been ably said by my right hon. and learned Friend and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Doughty). In the first place, they are quite unprecedented, as far as I am aware, in that the pleading is to be on one side through their provision for one side to present its case and to be able to have its case probed by the other side without any quid pro quo. It is without precedent and is grossly unfair, far different from the ordinary county court procedure which is called in aid in certain matters relating to the rules of procedure.
In county courts, the system is fair. Here, it is not. Rule 3(1,a) deals with what we lawyers call the provision of further and better particulars. This is a perfectly well-known formula and a part of the legal process. But it is quite unprecedented that one side should have to provide further and better particulars and not the other. It is quite unprecedented, as far as I am aware, that one side can be required to give further and better particulars by a tribunal or a court without having the right to test the order to give them.
Rule 3(1,a) gives the Minister power to apply, without notice to the applicant, to the tribunal for the applicant to be required to provide further particulars of his claim—and, as has been pointed out, not only particulars as we lawyers understand them but going even further in requiring the applicant to point out in his further and better particulars any "conventions relevant thereto".
This provision comes near to expecting the applicant to have to plead his arguments and his law as well. How extraordinary it is that this should be able to be done ex parte. There is clearly no method of appeal in this provision. In Rule 3(5), one finds that, where discovery is required under these turgid Regulations, a person on whom a requirement has been laid under Rule 3(2)
… may apply to the tribunal to vary or set aside the requirement.
But this is not the case with the requirement in Rule 3(1,a), although 3(1 b) is brought in at the beginning of 3(5). Why should not a person have the right to argue as to what matters are relevant for him to have to disclose? This is perfectly normal legal procedure. If, for example, the Ministry concerned were calling upon an applicant to reveal all sorts of trade matters which he wished to contend were not relevant to the issue, he ought to be allowed to do so.
In a Standing Committee recently, we have been discussing the meaning of natural justice. These Regulations go very much against natural justice. They do not allow one party the right to challenge the making of an order to cause him to reveal matters which he may think irrelevant to the whole inquiry. That is the effect of Rule 3(l,a). Under Rule 3(1,b), there is the remarkable provision that discovery and inspection of documents is required one way and not the other.
This is a remarkable set of Regulations. In my submission, late though it may be, it is appropriate that the House should consider the matter. It is an example of extraordinary arrogance on the part of the Government.
Now, the question of costs. Will the hon. Lady tell us what circumstances she envisages to justify an applicant being ordered to pay the Ministry's costs, which at present can be required under Rule 9? I should have preferred to see a provision that costs shall not be awarded against an applicant save on the ground that, in the unanimous opinion of the tribunal, the application was frivolous. I would not quarrel with that, but only in those circumstances would I think it right that costs should be awarded against the applicant, particularly when the whole Selective Employment payments business is in such an extraordinary muddle.
Industrialists are in utter confusion as to which employers and which establishments fall into which category. It is entirely wrong for there to be a general power in the tribunal, in any circumstances, with no guidance given, to award costs against an applicant.
I ask the hon. Lady to give us a reply to these questions, but, better still, will she take these nasty Regulations back and look at the whole matter again, with a view to putting before the House something which is in accordance with natural justice and is somewhat fair, which would be more than can be said for the basic tax giving rise to the Regulations?

10.38 p.m.

Mr. Ian Percival: When we debated the Selective Employment Payments Bill, I urged the Minister to think again about his decision to refer these very important and difficult matters to this tribunal. I did so because it seemed to me to be utter folly to do otherwise when we have in this country courts which are the envy of the rest of the civilised world for the manner in which they dispense justice between the greatest and the humblest, between the citizen and the State, without fear or favour and without any advantage to either. I see an hon. Gentleman shaking his head. I do not know whether he means it in dissent. Perhaps we shall hear from him later. I should be astonished to hear anyone in the House deny that our legal system is the envy of the rest of the world.
We have in our courts procedure well tried and tested over the years, worked out by people, from the Lord Chancellor downward, who have spent a lifetime with one object only, to see that the standard of our legal processes is maintained. It is utter folly, when we have that procedure, to look for some other. I opposed what the Minister wanted to do because I felt certain that any alternative to the procedure of our courts already available could only be less satisfactory. Anybody who doubted the validity of those arguments at the time need only look at the Regulations to see how right the arguments were.
The Parliamentary Secretary should think a little more about this matter than the Minister did. She should heed the arguments and not brush them aside as


the arguments of lawyers dealing with lawyers' law. The legal system and lawyers have one purpose only. It is to provide a service for the fair, and manifestly fair, resolution of disputes between one person and another. It is especially important that the procedure should be fair, and manifestly fair, when the disputes which are to be resolved are between the individual and the State. That is the kind of disputes here in question.
The Regulations provide for a procedure which, however it may be wrapped up, is heavily loaded in favour of the very man who has introduced them. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Sir J. Hobson) and others of my hon. Friends have gone into details to demonstrate that. I will endeavour to avoid repetition, but it is necessary to stress some of these points. Those who do not practise the law perhaps have some difficulty in seeing how in practice the rules they make work out. I therefore hope they will not be too proud to listen to the advice given to them by those who spend their lives seeing how these things work out in practice.
Attention has been drawn to Rule 3(1,a). I hope that the hon. Lady will not brush aside the arguments which have been adduced on this Rule. She will do them a great deal less than justice unless she answers them fully and fairly. It is standard procedure in all disputes in all courts that both sides give to the other the essence of their case. This is so that there may be fairness to both sides, so that neither side can be taken by surprise and thus be unfairly treated.
It is more than that. The duty of the court is not simply to the parties. The duty of the court is to ensure that justice is done so far as it can and to avoid having freak decisions because one party is taken by surprise and does not know the case of the other party. The stating of the issues in advance is for the benefit of the court as well as for the benefit of the parties, so that the court may do its duty to ensure that justice is in fact done and that somebody is not denied justice by default.
The procedure here laid down is entirely novel. I hope the hon. Lady will tell us why a different procedure has been chosen. You will be glad to hear,

Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I do not propose to go into detail on the questions set out in the forms. If I were to do so, I should go on for ever. How an applicant will answer some of these questions on the little bit of space provided goodness only knows. For instance, question No. 3 on Form 1 is:
Is access between all parts of the area comprised in those premises or parts of premises available without leaving premises occupied by the applicants?
I should not like to have to try to answer that one. But one side will have to try to answer it. If the Minister thinks that he would like some more information he writes to the secretary, an order is made, and he has to give some more.
I hope that the hon. Lady will put herself in the position of the applicant, solicitor, counsel or any other person who, under these rules, may appear and ask herself how she would deal with the case at the hearing when she has not the slightest idea how many facts are agreed by the Minister, what the real point is, or what points will be argued.
It is astonishing that anybody could have laid down this procedure. The most charitable excuse that one can make is that these are the rules laid by the Minister and that perhaps the full implications of them have not been appreciated. I hope that the hon. Lady and her advisers will have another look at them, will ask herself whether it is right that these rules should be loaded in favour of one side—because that is certainly what they are—and that if she proposes to persist with these Regulations she will grasp the nettle and tell us why they should be so loaded.
The second illustration of this loading is to be found in Rule 3(5):
An applicant on whom a requirement has been made under paragraph (1)(b)"—
that is discovery—
of this Rule on the ex parte application of the Minister",
and so on. No doubt the hon. Lady knows what an ex parte application is. It is an application in which only one side is heard. Why should any order be made in these proceedings without giving the other party the right to be heard? What is achieved by it?
I know of no other legal procedure, save in the case of extreme urgency, in which a court has any right to make


an order on an ex parte application. How can it be necessary to adopt this procedure? If the Minister wants an order for discovery, why should not the normal, accepted procedure be adopted of giving notice to the other side that the Minister seeks such an order and giving that other side the right to make its representations first?
The fact that that party should have a right to be heard is clearly recognised in the next sentence, because it goes on:
… a person on whom a requirement has been made under paragraph (2) of this Rule may apply to the tribunal to vary or set aside the requirement.
Why do it in that order? Why not give that person the right to be heard before an order is made and not place on that person an obligation to apply to set it aside?

Mr. Buck: Even that concession is not given concerning the further and better particulars under Rule 3(1,a).

Mr. Percival: I am obliged. That saves me one sentence. Even that is not all. This is an Alice in Wonderland procedure.
An application to vary can only be made or heard if it is made before the time or, as the case may be, before the expiration of the time so appointed. My right hon. and learned Friend has pointed out that that may cause great hardship if the notice is not received in time. The situation is made even worse when it is borne in mind that there is no provision here that I can find saying what notice is to be given to an applicant against whom an ex parte order has been made, and nothing saying how much time is to be given to him to make his application to set it aside.
If one were to allow these ex parte orders to be made—which, for the reasons I have put forward, is in itself bad—it would be essential to make certain that there was a specific requirement for the giving of notice of that order to the applicant with a minimum time allowed to him for applying to set it aside. I support what my right hon. and learned Friend has said. It is extraordinarily difficult to see why this time limit, which could be of great importance, should be singled out as the one time

limit which cannot be extended in any circumstances.
I go into these points of detail for this reason. One cannot understand the effect of a document like this without examining in at least a little detail these practical aspects of it. All these things to which my right hon. and hon. and learned Friends have referred may be very convenient administratively for the Minister, but in my view they breach a fundamental requirement of our legal system.
If there is one aspect of our legal system which is more important than another, it is that the procedure should be such that there is no weighting in favour of either party. If there is to be any departure from that, then in cases where the dispute is between the citizen and the State, if any favour is to be given to either side, it is of paramount importance that it be given to the citizen and not to the State.
I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary—I have said this before, but it bears repeating—will face these difficulties and not simply try to sweep them aside as lawyers' law. They are not. It is attention to matters of this sort and the principles underlying them which has led to the position that we have a legal system which is the envy of the world. It ill behoves us to depart from it. I hope that if there be a good reason for these departures, the hon. Lady will grasp the nettle and tell them to us straight out. I hope that if, on reflection, she feels, as we on this side feel, that there are no such good reasons, she will be big enough to take another look at them and come back with other proposals which hold the balance between the State and the individual.

10.55 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mrs. Shirley Williams): I am under no illusion, as a non-lawyer, that I am in the easiest possible position in this debate. I can only argue that perhaps an economist has something to contribute to the Ministry of Labour, though I am not sure that it is to this particular aspect of its work. I shall endeavour to answer as clearly as I can the points which have been raised in the debate, and I declare in


advance that perhaps legal language does not come tripping off my tongue.
First I come to the two most crucial points made by right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite about the county courts not being used on appeal against removal from the register, or on an application for restoration to the register by a company with regard to the refund or premium payments.
I think that the first point to make is that Section 7(5) of the Selective Employment Payments Act does itself indicate that the tribunals shall be used, and this Act has, of course, been passed by the House. I will not rely purely on that point, however, but I will add a few more reasons why I think it was the view of my right hon. Friend that extension of the work of the tribunals in this respect was more appropriate than appeal to the county courts.
First of all, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Sir J. Hobson) will be very fully aware, the chairman of a tribunal must in any event be a lawyer, and he must be a lawyer of the sort of seniority which is normal for a county court judge. He is supported by two laymen, one drawn from each side of industry, but this may well be felt by employers appealing to the tribunal to be something of a safeguard, since they can be sure they will have somebody who understands their problems as employers, and not only purely legal questions.
Secondly, I think it is fair to say that work of the tribunals, both under the provisions of the Industrial Training Act under which they were originally set up, and subsequently under the Redundancy Payments Act and then the Selective Employment Payments Act, has been regarded as very satisfactory. Moreover, there is the protection, of course, afforded by the Council on Tribunals.
We felt that another reason for using the tribunals rather than the county courts is the informal atmosphere of the tribunals, which we felt would itself be an advantage particularly for small employers who wish to be but who may find it difficult or expensive to be represented.
Finally there is the point raised by the hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Doughty), that among those who will be drawn from the employers'

panel are many people with a good deal of experience of taxation matters. He asked whether I can explain why the tribunals should be used for taxation matters. I would point out that generally the Special Commissioners of Taxes are used as tribunals in Income Tax cases, and that it can be argued that the tribunals have at least as much experience of tax matters as the county courts.

Mrs. Margaret Thatcher: Oh, no.

Mrs. Williams: The hon. Lady disagrees, but this is a matter, perhaps, of different advice from different lawyers.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman argued that conceivably the Regulations now being laid before the House were ultra vires. I think that I can only here refer him to the words directly
to be referred to and determined by a tribunal
in the provisions of Section 7(5), and which give the employer the right to require a question to be referred; and if he exercises that right—this is the force of the word "may" in this context, which differs from the Redundancy Payments Act—the case shall be determined by the tribunal, which is a way of giving the right and obligation to refer the matter to that tribunal.
With regard to the questions about the Minister's case, which were raised by a good many hon. Members opposite and the right hon. and learned Member, I think that perhaps the best thing I can do is to try to explain fairly fully the background to Rule 3(1,a) in the Regulations, under which, of course, there is no corresponding right for an applicant to apply for an order requiring the appropriate Minister to give particulars. This is a point which aroused a good deal of feeling on the other side of the House.
I would say, in reply to this, that the only information in the possession of the appropriate Minister—that is to say, either the Minister of Labour or the Minister of Agriculture—would be information supplied by the applicant himself. Certainly, the Minister's decision in any particular case would be based on the view he took as to the legal effect of information supplied to him by


the applicant. It was felt that this was hardly an appropriate matter to be sup plied by the applicant, and that it would be a more appropriate matter to argue before the tribunal. Therefore, it was submitted to the Council on Tribunals that the effect of making Rule 3(1,a) bilateral, having in mind that the Minister would not have information on the matter in any event, would impose an unjustifiable burden on tribunals and confer no benefit on applicants—

Mr. Percival: I do not quite follow the hon. Lady there. What burden would it impose on tribunals? All they have to do is to make an order. What the hon. Lady says does not go anywhere near the length of the argument, be cause it is normal in any case for the one side to say how much of the facts it admits or how much is in dispute. What she says does not at all meet the point of why the Minister should not do that. It does not impose any burden on tribunals. Likewise, the grant—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. and learned Gentleman cannot make a second speech. He can ask a question.

Mr. Percival: Then I will do that. Does not the hon. Lady agree that her proposition does not deal with the obligation on the applicant to give grounds, or why the Minister should not state his grounds?

Mrs. Williams: Had the hon. and learned Gentleman waited for a moment, I would have come to that point.
There is an obligation on the Minister to state his grounds—that is one of the important points I wish to make—and to give his reasons for a decision to include an employer, or exclude an employer from the register, for the purposes of premium or refund. That decision basically arises from the whole of the information available to the Minister on the matter. It is, therefore, because an application for further information other than that already comprehended in the application to the Minister to supply reasons would be an application for information not available to the Minister in any event, since it is in the light of the reason given by the Minister that the

employer feels he has further information to give on the basis of which he applies for reconsideration, that we see no purpose, in justice or otherwise, would be served by this bilateral or mutual application both ways.
The point made by the hon. and learned Member for Southport (Mr. Percival) is already dealt with by the obligation on the Minister to give reasons for refuting the application.

Sir J. Hobson: If the Minister gives a reason and then there is an application that reveals a lot of new facts, the Minister may desire to contest those new facts on quite different grounds from those at the original decision. It may raise points never raised before. Why should the Minister not be obliged to say what he has to say against the case put by the employer?

Mrs. Williams: This is a point we thought should be argued before the tribunal. The point is that it is only in the light of the information given in the application that the Minister will be able to reconsider or add to the reasons he originally gave for refusing an application, or refusing to accept the employer on the register.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman raised the question of jurisdiction between English and Scottish courts. I would point out that it would be for the employer to decide—if there were any question about the precise area in which his premises were—which of the jurisdictions he wished to use. By passing through a central registration, namely, that of the London secretary to the tribunals, in the first place, there would be no question of a clash of jurisdiction. The area of jurisdiction would be decided at that point.
The date of the restoration of the com pany to the register is for the tribunal to decide. The Minister does not decide it. I would refer the right hon. and learned Gentleman to Section 7(5,b)—

Sir J. Hobson: It is quite right—I appreciate that it is Section 7 to which the hon. Lady refers—but the only matter to which the procedure applies is what is set out in the order, and surely that question is not remitted, under the procedure in these Regulations, to the industrial tribunal.

Mrs. Williams: I understand that the tribunal would have the right to decide on the date of the restoration of the company to the register, unless that date was the date on which the company had applied for restoration.
Section 10(2) makes it clear that the reference is not merely to "premises" but to the business carried on. Both matters must be taken into account. Costs concerning hearings before the tribunal would normally follow the decision made. It would not be the case that the costs would necessarily always be awarded against the applicant.
I was also asked about the question of timing. The timing of this matter is within the discretion of the tribunal under Rule 10(2). Notice will normally be required under that Rule, and the tribunal may grant an ex parte application in connection with Rule 3(5). Under that latter Rule it is possible for an applicant to require documents to be produced for inspection and to be set aside or varied. Under Regulation 24(2, 5) a party can apply for a summons to be dispensed with and under paragraph (6) of that order a summons against a party taken out within the expiration period can mean that documents may be required to be produced.
I come to some of the other points raised by the right hon. and learned Member for Warwick and Leamington. First, the question of the original application. That must be made through the central office. The reason is because the central office will be free to allocate an appeal to the appropriate offices and then the office must at once inform the applicant of the address of the relevant office.
The reason for doing this is to build up a central register of appeals and to avoid any of the complications that might flow as a result of firms which have many branches being uncertain as to which area of the country they should apply. There might be a number of complications about this and it seems simpler to arrange for all original applications to go through the central office and then be allocated to the regions which are most appropriate.
On this and other occasions the right hon. and learned Gentleman has referred to the tribunal itself. Originally, as he is aware, tribunals were set up to deal with

appeals under the Industrial Training Act against assessments to levy. It was later agreed that it would be very much in line with the recommendations of the Franks Committee, which reported on the subject of tribunals, that wherever possible new jurisdiction should be given to the existing tribunals.
The Act indicates that the matters should go to tribunals and not to county courts and that suggestion was in line with the recommendations of the Franks Committee. My right hon. Friend agreed to assimilate appeals under the Act, and it was agreed that the industrial tribunals already set up to deal with the Redundancy Payments Act, the Contracts of Employment Act and the Industrial Training Act should be used in this way.
It was pointed out that when the Redundancy Payments Act was added to the sphere of responsibility of the tribunals, the Council on Tribunals welcomed the concentration of jurisdiction in fewer and stronger tribunals. It emphasised the importance of having people of the right calibre to serve on these tribunals.
I need not go into detail into the make-up of the tribunals, except to refer to a Question which the right hon. and learned Member for Warwick and Leamington put to my right hon. Friend some time ago arguing that there were some delays in obtaining hearings before tribunals. I would not deny that, but it is interesting to note that there has been a rapid increase in the panels of both employers and employees since that question was raised.
In July, 1966, there were 134 employers on the employers' panel and there are now 214. There were, at that time, 118 employees on the employees' panel, and today there are 190. The reason why there is not a better balance is because of the greater commitments of employers, and this makes it more difficult for them to attend as frequently as employees.
In this connection, when my right hon. Friend replied to the right hon. and learned Gentleman's previous Question, a reference was made to "frequent changes" in the panels. Some suggestions have been made indicating that there had been many resignations and a heavy turnover in staffing the panels. That is not


so. There have been only eight resignations, and the reference to "frequent changes" was simply a reference to additions to the existing panels.
I shall say a word or two about the areas in which the tribunals sit. Here again, a point made by the right hon. and learned Gentleman has been to some extent met by my right hon. Friend. There are now 14 centres in England and Wales and six in Scotland, The tribunals have sat for a period of 100 days and they sit simultaneously.
The order extends the power of the presidents to the chairmen nominated for the purposes of the tribunals. One of the purposes is to give powers to the chairmen under which they can hold hearings in certain places, appoint the times of the sittings, and appoint lay members. This lifts a burden, which is very great, from the presidents of the tribunals. It is my right hon. Friend's intention to set up regional offices of industrial tribunals in Newcastle, Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester, North Wales and the Midlands and in addition to appoint two assistant full-time chairmen to the central office to enable hearings to be held as rapidly as possible.
Another matter which may be of assistance to the House relates to references to tribunals. The employer will always have an opportunity first of clearing factual questions with the local office of the Ministry. If he is not satisfied, he may clear such factual questions with the headquarters of the Ministry of Labour. We felt that it should be possible to make reference to the Central Office and for employers not to have to deal with questions which were far from their own addresses.
In the light of the various points I hope that I have shown why the tribunals were considered more appropriate than county courts. I stress that this is precisely in line with what the Act says.

Question put and negatived.

MENTALLY HANDICAPPED, WYTHENSHAWE (TRAINING CENTRE)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Bishop.]

11.13 p.m.

Mr. Alfred Morris: I preface this debate by thanking my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health for being present at this hour to speak on what I know he will recognise to be a matter of the first importance to the community which I represent in this House. He is a Minister whose precepts and practice are one. He not only speaks in the accents of social enlightenment, but always insists on acting according to its spirit. His humanity in his approach to the mentally handicapped was extremely well brought out in the debate on the Motion by my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Hamling) on 18th February this year.
As the Parliamentary Secretary knows, my purpose in seeking this debate is to emphasise the urgency of the need for a new adult training centre for the mentally handicapped in Wythenshawe and to relate this need to the City of Manchester's pursuit of a much improved service for some of the least fortunate of her citizens. There is at present only one adult training centre in Manchester, which has a population of some 640,000. At the last estimate there were 1,173 mentally sub-normal or severely sub-normal adults resident in the city. Our one existing centre is in the north of the city at Domett Street, Blackley, and with 200 trainees in attendance it is full to capacity and serves mentally handicapped adults from every part of Manchester.
Because the Blackley centre has to serve the whole of the city, some 64 trainees from the south of Manchester are daily involved in bus journeys of up to three hours in duration. Many of these trainees live in my constituency in the extreme south of Manchester, and this occasions severe strain for the trainees and both inconvenience and stress for their parents.
The buses commence picking up trainees in my constituency at 8 a.m. and


arrive at the training centre at approximately 9.30 a.m. They leave the training centre at 4.30 p.m. and, if all goes well, the last trainee is set down at approximately 6 p.m. The distance travelled by these buses in the morning is 19 miles, and there is then the return journey of 19 miles in the evening, making a total of 38 miles for each bus each day.
Perhaps the worry and stress associated with this amount of travel by the mentally handicapped in my constituency who attend the Blackley Centre can be best brought out by reading brief extracts from two of the many letters which I have received from their parents. One of them writes:
I am the mother of a 25 years-old mentally handicapped daughter who until the adult centre opened recently at Blackley was attending a nearby junior centre. She now has to travel for over two hours more a day and, with the winter coming on, this will mean very real hardship for her. Please can you help us?".
Another of my constituents, living at Woodhouse Park at the southern end of Wythenshawe, writes:
Our daughter now has to go right across Manchester to Blackley. We are very distressed that she has to travel well over 30 miles a day. She leaves at eight o'clock in the morning and is not back home until six o'clock at night. We think this is far too much for a mentally handicapped person to have to endure and it causes us a great deal of worry
Manchester's distinguished Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Metcalfe Brown, has emphasised to me the effects of excessive travelling both on the trainees themselves and on their mothers or other relatives who escort them to the nearest picking up point in the morning and meet them again when the bus returns in the evening.
Again, the Wythenshawe Society for Mentally Handicapped Children, through its Chairman, Mr. C. S. Marsden, has presented me with much helpfully detailed information concerning which I have been in frequent contact with the Parliamentary Secretary during recent months.
All the 64 trainees from South Manchester to whom I have referred would be served by the new centre at Altrincham Road, Wythenshawe, for which my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health has now been requested to give his approval

and grant loan sanction. I do, of course, fully appreciate the recency of the application for loan sanction from the City of Manchester. It was addressed to my right hon. Friend's Department only on 11th November, and I am thus especially fortunate to have the case for approving the application discussed in the House within a week of its submission. My hon. Friend will, however, understand the urgency of the intensely human plea I am making on behalf of my constituents, and I know that he can be relied upon to do all in his power to help.
I know that he will also understand the point put to me very strongly by the Chairman of Manchester Health Committee, Councillar Kenneth Collis. This is that when the Wythenshawe centre becomes operational, with 200 trainees in attendance, there will still be a very serious shortage of places for adult trainees in the City of Manchester, excluding those who are in work and those who it is considered would not benefit from training.
It is estimated that the potential number of adult training centre trainees is 600, of whom many are now in desperate need of places. This number will grow each year as children in the junior training centres attain the age of 16 and, as about 5 per cent. of the adult training centre trainees are placed in employment annually, it is estimated that the annual increase in the number of adult training centre places required will be 30–35. Based on this estimate, a total of 800 adult training centre places will be required in Manchester by 1973.
Having emphasised the extreme urgency of the need for the new training centre in Wythenshawe, I cannot let this opportunity pass to pay the warmest tribute to the parents of those who suffer under mental handicap in my constituency. They are brave and selfless people who cope so well, often with impossible situations and who are liable themselves sometimes to physical, psychological and moral breakdowns. We owe a special duty to them for ensuring that our mentally handicapped fellows are not unloved or uncared for.
I have myself always had a special interest in those living in danger of being unloved or uncared for. That is why I deeply admire the devotion of so many


of the parents of the mentally handicapped. I also pay special tribute to those who work in this field in the City of Manchester, either voluntarily or professionally. They are people of real dedication who spend not only their working hours but often their leisure hours in one of the most difficult forms of social service one can possibly imagine.
Anyone who has visited one of the adult or junior training centres cannot but marvel at the achievements and humanity of the people giving their lives to this service. Anyone who has taught, as I have, both the very able and severely subnormal child knows that the ideal of equality of opportunity is not enough when applied to the person who is severely handicapped mentally. Those who work either voluntarily or professionally for them recognise the need to bias opportunity in favour of those who lack the physical or mental power to compete on the basis of equality of opportunity.
These new training centres symbolise the move away from the pessimism and fear which surrounded for so long the mentally handicapped to a new theme of education, training and purpose more suited to the social and medical advances of our time. Their aim is to ensure that the mentally handicapped have a place in society, that they are fully integrated into the community and are accepted there not with condescension but with genuine sympathy and understanding.
I am proud of my son"—
wrote a mother of a 17-year-old handicapped boy to me recently. She said:
In time he will be doing a good job of work.
Such is parental confidence in the value of the new training centre we are seeking to build for our mentally handicapped, and such is the testimony of a devoted parent to the debt all of us owe to those who work, whether voluntarily or professionally, in this vitally important social service.

11.25 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. Charles Loughlin): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris) for

raising the question of the new adult training centre to be provided in his constituency because he has given me the opportunity not only to assure him that the Government are no less anxious than he to see this centre established but also to give the House some indication of the importance which we attach to the provision of facilities for the care and training of the mentally handicapped adult, as is shown by the figures published in the ten-year plans for local authority health and welfare services. I shall return to this later, but, first, I shall refer briefly to the underlying reasons.
The growth of a sense of community responsibility for the mentally handicapped has in recent years made it possible for many handicapped adults who would formerly have entered hospital now to live at home and go to work daily in an environment as nearly like that of the normal place of work as possible. This environment is provided in an adult training centre. Also, it is necessary to provide for the large numbers of mentally handicapped children who are now passing through the junior training centre, as my hon. Friend so rightly said, and who need suitable work and further training in adult centres.
As my hon. Friend knows, this adult training centre in Manchester will be the second to be established in the city and, like the first, it will provide about 200 places. Manchester has a very substantial number of people for whom places in such centres are needed or will be needed in the next five years. With this in view, the council included in its proposals for the next ten years, published last June in the ten-year plans for the development of the local health and welfare services, two more adult training centres of similar size to be provided in the course of the next few years, making four in all with a total of 800 places.
The building of the new centre at Wythenshawe will substantially relieve the difficulties, to which my hon. Friend referred, when trainees have to travel to the present centre in North Manchester. I assure my hon. Friend that I entirely sympathise with both the trainees and their parents and relatives in the travel difficulties which they encounter. The development of further centres will not


only meet the needs of the city for places but contribute further to an easing of the travel problem.
A submission from the City of Manchester for the adult training centre in Wythenshawe has been received this week in the Ministry, and officers of the Ministry are engaged in considering it now. Perhaps I should explain the steps which the local authority has had to take to reach this position.
When an authority wishes to build such a centre, it includes it in its long-term capital building programme as part of its ten-year development plan for its health and welfare services. It does the detailed preliminary planning for such schemes which it hopes to start building in the next two years or so and sends these in the form of a scheme submission to the Ministry for approval in principle and the agreement of a cost limit. This is the stage which Manchester has now reached on this scheme.
The Minister issues each year lists of schemes for which, if ready, loan sanctions are likely to be available in the following year. This scheme for the centre at Wythenshawe was included in the Minister's list of schemes for 1965–66 and was subsequently carried forward to 1966–67.
To guide local authorities in preparing such schemes, the Ministry has issued a Building Note on adult training centres giving guidance on function, design, standards of accommodation and cost. Even where, as in the present case, the proposed centre is so large that it falls outside the scope of the Note, the Note is still extremely useful both to the local authority and to the Department in planning and considering a scheme.
The further stages of the building procedure which must be completed before this building can actually be started are probably only too well known to my hon. Friend. First, the Ministry will consider the sketch plans which have been submitted this week with a view to agreeing with the council the cost limit appropriate for this particular training centre. It may be necessary for discussions to take place between professional officers of the Ministry and of the council on any amendments or adjustments to the scheme which may be needed before the cost limit can be fixed.
I want to say quite categorically to my hon. Friend that there will be no delay on the Ministry's part in dealing with proposals it now has before it. When the stage to which I have just referred has been completed, it will be necessary for the council to prepare detailed drawings before it is ready to start building. I understand that the council proposed that the scheme should be built by direct labour. The Ministry will also need to be satisfied that this method will provide the training centre at a competitive price, but as soon as these steps have been completed the council will be able then to apply formally for loan sanction.
As my hon. Friend knows and as I have said, this scheme is among those for which the Minister has said he hopes to be able to recommend the issue of loan sanction in the current financial year if the scheme is ready. If, however, loan sanction stage is not reached by the end of March next year, it will be necessary for us to consider the scheme for inclusion for the building programme for 1967/68. I am only making this point so that I can assure my hon. Friend that we see no difficulty about this.
As I said at the beginning, I am very glad that this debate affords me an opportunity of saying a few general words about the provision of services for mentally handicapped adults. The handicapped adults for whom these training centres are provided are those who, because of mental handicap, are temporarily or permanently incapable of earning their living either in open or sheltered employment. Most of them will as children have attended one of the local health authorities' training centres for children; some will have attended ordinary or special schools but not have developed to the stage where they are capable of supporting themselves in remunerative employment. The object of adult training centres, like that of training centres for children, is to provide training and occupation of a kind which will create the best setting and the right stimulus for the mentally handicapped to develop to their full potential.
In recent years a much more positive approach has been adopted to training adults. We know more and more about the extent to which even the severely subnormal can progress towards useful and meaningful work in adult life, if


they are given the right training from an early age.
The nature of the work done in adult training centres has changed fundamentally. Not so very long ago, the people attending what were then known as "occupation centres" were kept occupied on what was essentially diversionary occupation, with little or no economic value—the slow and laborious manufacture of wicker baskets or very simple occupations. It is now recognised that a proportion of trainees will in due course progress to open or sheltered employment in factories or other types of jobs.
Local authorities, therefore, with our guidance and encouragement, seek to establish a suitable balance in adult training centres between training and work. While many will not progress to ordinary employment, it is beneficial to all to be trained so far as possible in the disciplines and responsibility involved in holding a job. Experience has shown that the capacity of the mentally handicapped for industrial work is far greater than anyone used to think. We know that many firms have been astounded by the quantity and quality of work done in these centres. Indeed, there are one or two particularly interesting schemes where trainees from a centre work under supervision side by side with the staff of a factory. For some time much of the emphasis in the development of training centres for the mentally handicapped has been naturally on provision for children, but more recently developments in the provision of training for sub-normal adults have been no less marked.
In 1964, for the first time, the number of trainees in adult centres exceeded that in junior centres, and at 31st December, 1965, the figures were 16,918 and 16,106, respectively. Under the ten-year plan the total number of places for adults is planned to reach 33,971 by 1976, and in the same ten-year period the total number of places provided for children is planned to increase to 28,493.
It is not possible yet to say what would be the desirable provision of training centre places for adults in this country as a whole. There are wide variations in the future provision planned by individual authorities. We know that some authorities are making too little provision, although there will often be

local factors which would justify variations from what would normally be regarded as appropriate.
I am happy to assure my hon. Friend that Manchester is not to be numbered among those authorities of which this can be said. Manchester's plans for adult training centre places per 1,000 population are among the highest in the country. The difficulty in this field, as so often happens in mental health, is that needs appear to grow as services are established. Only the provision of a particular service brings fully to light the extent of the real need for it and there can be no doubt that we shall need to expand training centre provision for many years to come, especially for adults.
It is not to training centres alone that we should look when considering the range of services required by mentally handicapped adults. The ten-year plan also looks forward to a substantial provision of residential accommodation, although we would, I think, agree that placement in lodgings privately with families or in small self-supporting groups in ordinary houses are alternative methods and for some to be preferred. Our aim should surely be to enable each person to live as normal a social life as possible. But, even so, we have no doubt that a great many more hostels will have to be provided and staffed by local authorities, and in this field also I am glad to say that Manchester is planning substantial provision.
Perhaps I have spoken a little too much about bricks and mortar and not enough about the staff without whom the service could not function. I should like to echo the tribute paid by my hon. Friend to the staff of the adult training centres. The work which they undertake is arduous and often no doubt frustrating, especially to those who come with experience of every-day industrial work. At the same time, it is a challenge to their skill and patience. The training centres depend on them, and it is they who have the prime responsibility for helping each individual trainee to live a happy life in which he can fulfil himself to the greatest possible extent.
I have had the opportunity during the time that I have been in my present office to visit many training centres. Indeed, I was in two training centres yesterday. Whatever tributes can be paid


by my hon. Friend to the staff of the training centres, they cannot be greater than the feeling of gratitude and admiration which I have for them.
I think that there is, as I hope I have shown, plenty of room for experiment with different services aimed at enabling mentally handicapped adults to be independent to the limit of their individual capacity and to enjoy as far as possible the ordinary life of the community.
I should like to finish by saying once more that I am very grateful to my hon.

Friend for giving me this opportunity, in the course of answering the points he has raised about the new adult training centre in his constituency, of speaking more generally on the development of these services for the mentally handicapped.
I should like to conclude by paying a sincere tribute to my hon. Friend for his long and valuable service in this field.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at nineteen minutes to Twelve o'clock.